Lawton businesswoman pleads to federal count

OKLAHOMA CITY — A Comanche County businesswoman pleaded guilty to one count and had 11 other charges of federal public corruption allegations dismissed in the U.S. Western District Court of Oklahoma.

On Friday, Candy Hanza, 50, of Lawton, pleaded guilty before Judge Patrick R. Ryrick to one count of bribery, records indicate. As part of the plea deal, the other charges of wire fraud and money laundering will be dismissed at the time of sentencing.

Hanza told The Constitution taking the plea was a step to protect her employees and to shed light on how much pressure there is to hold onto contracts.

“I pleaded guilty to being coerced into paying a government official to help keep my hotel in the military contract,” she said. “It was established today that the government shows zero loss, both hotels in the contract received their fair share and the overflow of soldiers that I housed kept three other hotels opened during COVID.”

Hanza joins former Fort Sill Army training manager Alfred Palma, 64, of Duncan, in pleaded guilty to counts relating to the indictment, filed by a federal grand jury on May 13. He entered his plea in mid-June to a public corruption charge, records indicate. He also had been charged with accepting a bribe as a public official.

Palma, a former Army employee and public official, was the manager of the Institutional Training Directed Lodging and Meals (“ITDLM”) program at Fort Sill, through which he booked hotel rooms for soldiers who attended on-post trainings. According to the indictment, Hanza, then the general manager of Comfort Suites in Lawton, paid Palma to direct soldiers to the hotel.

Hanza said there was pressure put on her by Palma to do “favors” regarding the arrangement. She said the use of the word “scheme” 48 times in the discovery and indictment against her was not one.

“The reality is the Comfort Suites was outsourcing the overflow rooms for many years with the ITDLM knowledge and permission,” she said.

After Endeavor Travel took over the billing for the outsourced hotels, the Comfort Suites ownership company failed to pay the subcontracted hotels in 2017 and 2018, according to Hanza. She said there was over $100,000 owed and it took over six months before it was made right. It damaged the arrangement, she said.

“Once soldiers started to return (it usually starts in the spring) Sleep Inn and I received the list of what the on-base hotel needed for overflow,” she said “We filled my hotel and I worked with our community hotels to see about the overflow.”

Hanza said she gave the hotels her business credit card as a guarantee they would be paid “as soon as I was.” She said no soldier was returned to the hotel on post, which was often oversold. When the pandemic hit, training soldiers was the majority of business for the hotel. This is where, she said, Palma stepped in.

“The issue we ran into with Alfred Palma is he knew how desperately the hotel needed this business,” she said. “From the time the hotel opened in 2009, this contract accounted for more than half of our revenue. The owners would have me call him weekly to see if there were any updates on when solders would return.”

With his plea, Palma admitted to receiving cash and checks totaling $103,200 from Hanza in return for favoring Comfort Suites, where Hanza was a general manager, when he booked soldiers for off-post trainings. Palma further admitted that he used the cash to purchase money orders from Walmart in $1,000 increments, which he then deposited, along with the checks Hanza gave him, into his personal checking account.

Warning that small businesses have to be careful when dealing with contractors who “have the ability to bankrupt you,” Hanza said small favors turned into bigger and bigger favors asked by Palma.

“In our case Mr. Palma would talk about his wife’s cancer and him wanting to travel and take her places: bigger favors,” she said. “It just spirals until you lose control.”

Hanza said others testified that their hotels had received their share of the contracts and that the government auditor statement shows the government’s loss was a net zero.

“Every soldier had a room and the government was never charged more than their contracted rate ($74 to $86 a night),” she said. “The only one that made any money was Al and the hotels.”

“I did whatever it took to keep my hotel full,” she said. “I work seven days a week, just like I always have, and earn my living just like you do; never took anything from anyone.”

Since the indictment, Hanza has stepped down from her post with the Medicine Park Town Board. She continues to work with her businesses and hasn’t been with the Comfort Suites since 2021.

The blowback to her personal life has been hard. Hanza said that’s why she wanted to speak out. She knows people will continue to believe what they want to. It doesn’t mean you don’t share your story, however, she said.

“I am combatting such hatred right now from some that don’t even care what the truth is,” she said.

Hanza and Palma each face up to 15 years in federal prison, a fine of $250,000 or three times the monetary value of the bribes, and up to three years of supervised release.

Hanza and Palma will be sentenced following a pre-sentencing investigation which can take up to four months.