Jack Abramoff billed his
tribal clients hundreds of thousands of dollars for meals at Signatures. Billing, campaign finance records, and restaurant records show, for example, that the
Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians paid Greenberg Traurig over $5,600, and that the
Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians paid as much as $20,000 for dozens of luncheon and dinner events a month. Abramoff's preferred table was Table 40, where
Tom DeLay,
Dana Rohrabacher,
Bob Ney, and
John Doolittle were his regular guests, getting their meals comped. Rohrabacher ate as Abramoff's guest at least monthly, claiming the friendship exemption to House ethics rules.
Bob Ney paid Signatures about $1,900 for meals and events between 2002 and 2004 in addition to many comped meals. Restaurant records show that
Team Abramoff members Neil Volz and
Tony Rudy with
Tom Hammond organized $1,500 (minimum) dinners for their respective former bosses, Bob Ney and Tom DeLay, in April 2002, though campaign finance records show no payment. Although representatives
Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and
Frank A. LoBiondo (R-N.J.) and former senators
John Breaux (D-La.),
Don Nickles (R) and
Tim Hutchinson (R) were also on an Abramoff list of people to be comped, Blunt, LoBiondo, and Breaux deny ever receiving free meals. Between January 2002 and May 2003, Abramoff and his investors put more than $3 million into Signatures, spending seven percent of the restaurant's revenues on complimentary food and drinks, well above the industry standard. The official owner of Signatures was Livsar Enterprises, with Rodney Lane as its acting chief executive officer. The registered agent was Yale Ginsburg, an attorney, and Jay Kaplan, also an attorney, led the Signatures restaurant group. According to emails sent by Abramoff in 2001,
Capitol Campaign Strategies transferred money to Livsar, which he planned to have under the control of his wife Pamela. Signatures was built by John S. Hillery & Assoc. Const. Inc of
Sterling, Virginia, at a cost of $850,000.00. The original chefs were
executive chef Michael Rosen and
sous-chef Jeff Ramsey. In 2005, the executive chef was
Morou Ouattara. The main dining room seated 104 (50 seats at the bar), and about 50 on the patio. The private dining rooms seated 15 and 25 people. Amenities included rentable wine lockers and an in-house
humidor. The restaurant featured rare document collections of
Stan Klos, Edward Bomsey, and other political memorabilia. The documents on display in the restaurant included famous
autographs. Most of the items displayed were also for sale. Memorabilia in the restaurant included a rocking chair used by former U.S. president
John F. Kennedy (sold for $495,000), a signed replica of
Gerald Ford's pardon of
Richard Nixon (sold for $5,000), and signed portraits, letters, and photos of
Czar Nicholas,
Winston Churchill,
George Patton,
Rocky Marciano,
Harry Houdini,
Thomas Edison, and
Meyer Lansky (all sold for between $5,000 and $10,000). ==External links and references==