OSAN AIR BASE, South Korea — Former AAFES official H. Lee Holloway was sentenced Thursday in a Georgia federal court to three years in prison for taking bribes to help Korean telecom firm SSRT keep a lucrative contract selling Internet and phone service to U.S. troops in South Korea. During the sentencing in U.S. District Court in Columbus, Ga., District Judge Clay D. Land also fined Holloway $5,000 and ordered him to forfeit $70,000 in proceeds from his involvement in the bribery conspiracy, a U.S. Department of Justice news release said.In a plea agreement with prosecutors, Holloway admitted that even though he knew SSRT — also known as Samsung Rental Company Ltd. — was not providing the promised services to military customers, he “turned a blind eye” to customer complaints once the bribes began flowing, according to court documents.
Holloway, also known as Henry Lee Holloway, pleaded guilty in April to taking at least $70,000 in bribes and to not reporting bribe income to the Internal Revenue Service. The bribes were in the form of cash, stock offerings, entertainment, travel and other items of value, as well as prostitutes, dining and drinking, according to court documents.
The conspiracy ran from 2001 to 2006, according to court records, and centered on a $206 million AAFES contract to provide home Internet and phone services on U.S. military installations in South Korea.
Holloway was Army and Air Force Exchange Service general manager at Osan Air Base from June 2000 to August 2005. He was then AAFES general manager at Fort Benning, Ga., until he resigned in January 2007, during disciplinary proceedings, according to court documents. The South Korean businessman who headed SSRT, Jeong Gi-hwan, was sentenced in November in Dallas federal court to five years in prison and fined $50,000.
