Call Kurtis Investigates: Fake Bacon Bikini Fundraiser

ROSEVILLE (CBS13) -- A Call Kurtis investigation exposed a Roseville Restaurant owner who didn't hand over the money he raised for the family of a teen killed in a car crash. We've uncovered this same man raised money for a charity that doesn't exist.

By all accounts, the event on October 22nd at Lightfoot's California Cuisine in Roseville was quite the contest.
In front of a room full of chanting gawkers, women wearing bikinis made of strips of bacon appeared on stage. (You can see images at baconbikinibabe.com)

The proceeds from the event were to go to charity. An organization called the Jordan Lightfoot Foundation for Juvenile Diabetes. The only problem? The charity doesn't exist.

19-year old Jordan Lightfoot is the daughter of Steve Lightfoot who owns the restaurant. That night the crowd was pushed to buy raffle tickets.

"It's all going for a very good cause," the emcee is heard saying on video taken of the event.

Jordan was called up on stage to talk about the charity. "I've been diabetic for almost 14-years," she told the crowd. "I want to be able to help kids go through what I went through."

And while she does have diabetes, she says she was shocked to learn the charity her dad says he set up in her name isn't real.

I asked her, "Do you think he was using this fake charity to raise money for himself?"

"I hope that's not what his intentions were, but it seems it has been," she said.

"What do you think of that?" I asked.

"It disgusts me. It's not right."

Emcee Troy Goings of Get Me Goings P.R. and Marketing Firm says he was duped. He says he donated his time last minute after a local radio station pulled out of the event.

Goings thought the proceeds were going to Jordan's charity.

"How could somebody do that to their kid," he said. "I have three daughters of my own, and I would never do something like this."

Last night we showed you Traci Ditri confronting Steve Lightfoot. The grieving mother says Lightfoot pocketed 14-hundred dollars from a benefit he held this summer in honor of her teenage son Jared who was killed in a car crash.

It wasn't until we showed up to the restaurant unannounced; he finally agreed to come clean, admitting he spent the money. "I needed it and I used it," he told Ditri.

Lightfoot promised to get her the money and came through hours before our first story aired.

But now we have more questions for him.

Outside his restaurant, I asked him, "How did you have a charity event for a charity that doesn't exist?"

"The Jordan Lightfoot Foundation, the paperwork has been filed," he responded.

"The charity does not exist." I told him.

"The paperwork has been filed," he said.

"You can't have an event for a charity that does not exist." I said.

"I did not know that".

I asked his daughter Jordan if he lies. "He sounds like he has a tendency to," she responded.

I asked him if he could show us paperwork he filed for the charity.

He responded, "uh, that's in my other records, I have a home office all that stuff is at the home office." He later admitted, he didn't have any paperwork he could show us, and he says he didn't follow all of the necessary steps to create the charity.

"I'm not the evil person everyone is trying to portray here."

"It upsets me because it makes me look bad," Jordan told us.

She says she's sorry to anybody who thought they were helping a foundation in her name. When asked what her message was for her dad, she responded, "Stop lying".

Steve Lightfoot says this was all a misunderstanding.

He says the $110 raised from the bacon bikini contest will be donated to the Sacramento Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. He plans to do that tomorrow.
Restaurant update:
As of November 16, 2010, Lightfoot's California cuisine is no longer in business. The property manager and Lightfoot confirm he was kicked out last night.

Lightfoot's name has been removed from all the signs outside.

Property manager Len Travis told CBS13, "He (Lightfoot) and his restaurant no longer operate here, and he is not to be on the property ever again".

Travis says the move comes after learning what we uncovered in our investigation, and over several other issues. The Station's Bar which operates on that property is still open for business.