Signatures Restaurant - Abramoff's Scandalous Dealings

Abramoff's Scandalous Dealings

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.

Over the period of January 2002 to May 2003 Abramoff and his investors put more than $3 million into Signatures, spending 7 percent of revenues on comped food and drink, well above the industry standard.