I-Team

TALLAHASSEE (CBS4 I-TEAM) ― When Charlie Crist appointed his good friend and former campaign manager George LeMieux to the Senate, he thought he was making a safe pick.

LeMieux was supposed to be a non-controversial choice designed to keep the seat warm while Crist ran for the Senate.

But LeMieux's early days have been anything but easy.

The outrage has been building since the I-Team first revealed that LeMieux's law firm – Gunster Yoakley – was responsible depriving American workers jobs by securing visas for a group of foreign workers to enter the country. Their purpose was to install the heating and air conditioning ducts at the St. Regis hotel and condo project in Bal Harbour.

"This whole thing is anti-worker, un-American and it is against everything Floridians – when they find out the details – are all about," said Fred Frost, president of the South Florida AFL-CIO. "I think what this says to the governor is, "Cut your losses, not only for yourself politically, but for the people of this state.' Once they find out this guy is basically trying to destroy the middle class in order to maximize profits for corporations utilizing his law firm then they are going to say this is not the kind of senator we want for the people of this great state."

"Right now with so many people out of work it is ludicrous to have this happening -- especially with a person who Governor Crist says, `This is the best choice for the people of Florida,'" said Daniel Villarruel, an official with the Sheet Metal Workers International Association. "No this is not the best choice for the working man. It's the best choice for the guy up above, way beyond the working man."

On Tuesday, Frost, Villarruel, and about a dozen unemployed sheet workers, met with Congressman Kendrick Meek -- who will be Crist's likely opponent for the Senate seat next year.

"They are bringing in people to do my job that I had to go to school for for four years," said Lamont Mosley, who has been out of work for a year.

Meek expressed his support.

"These men and women have fallen victim to this law firm's skill and manipulation," Meek said. "If he stands for giving foreign workers an upper hand over Florida workers and US workers, then that is something that Floridians are going to have to look at."

As we reported last week, LeMieux is chairman of Gunster Yoakley; a Florida-based law firm which specializes in helping companies hire foreigners to replace American workers inside the United States.

In the case of the St. Regis project, Gunster Yoakley represented CYVSA International, a Mexican sheet metal firm which wanted to bring its own workforce into the country.

In a series of stories earlier this year, CBS4 News showed how the foreign workers were paid substantially less than what American sheet metal workers would be paid. The foreign workers also claimed they were required to work overtime without compensation.

For Meek the story was an opportunity to attack both Crist and LeMieux. But Meek wasn't the only one making political hay out of the I-Team's story.

Crist's opponent in the Republican primary, Marco Rubio, sent out a press release titled: Charlie Crist's Job-Killing Plan: Appointing George LeMieux to U.S. Senate

LeMieux has refused to comment on the story.

His law firm issued a statement over the weekend saying "George LeMieux was not a billing lawyer on an immigration matter at the firm and had nothing to do with the origination of this matter."

Meek says that as chairman of the firm, LeMieux has to take responsibility for its work.

"He was in the leadership and management of the law firm," Meek said. "You look over the books, you look over the accounts. You understand the cases."

For his part, Crist has been doing his best to sidestep the controversy.

Six months ago we tried interviewing Crist about the foreign workers at the St Regis project.

"This is the first I've heard of it Jim, but I'm happy to look into it," he said on February 18, 2009.

We never heard back from him.

On Friday, the day after our most recent story ran, a Herald reporter asked the governor about the visas and the role LeMieux's law firm played in securing them.

The governor again demurred saying: "All I saw was a news account of it last night and that's all I'm aware of."

Despite's the calls for Crist to rescind his nomination, LeMieux was headed to Washington over the weekend and is scheduled to be sworn in Thursday.

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