Mystery solved: Cuban American lawmakers Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Bob Menendez helped accused Castro spy Rene Gonzalez bring his wife and teenage daughter here from Cuba.

Ros-Lehtinen, Menendez and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., all denied last month that they were the Cuban-American members of Congress who the FBI said had helped the family reunification efforts of the most prominent defendant of the Cuban espionage ring.

But Miami defense attorney Don Mixon, who represented Gonzalez at a bond hearing, said he learned through an unnamed source that both the Republican Ros-Lehtinen of Miami and Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat, were the elected officials described in the criminal complaint written by FBI Agent Raul Fernandez. And Mixon announced it at a federal court hearing, he said.

The American-born Gonzalez, 39, who grew up on the island and made a dramatic 1990 return to the United States in a commandeered Cuban crop duster, was reunited with his wife and daughter last year when they arrived on visas issued by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1995.

The FBI agent wrote in his complaint that two men in the ring ``devised and implemented a cover plan to enlist the assistance of unwitting Cuban-American U.S. congresspersons in obtaining the supposed humanitarian release of [Gonzalez's] wife to the United States.''

Menendez spokeswoman Ivette Mendez said this week that a renewed search of the congressman's Jersey City files found that Menendez had exchanged correspondence with Gonzalez and wrote a letter on his behalf in 1996 and in 1997. Specifically, the New Jersey congressman wrote the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, at Gonzalez's request, to try to expedite the wife's Cuban exit permit.

In response, U.S. diplomats in Havana referred Gonzalez to the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, where Cuban diplomats represent Havana in consular matters. Menendez then wrote Gonzalez with that piece of advice, which means that, if the spy charges are found to be true, the congressman directed Gonzalez back to the government of his spymasters.

Ros-Lehtinen's role in the episode is less clear.

Her spokesman, Juan Cortinas, said the congresswoman's records don't reflect any information because an accidental fire last year destroyed her Miami office, where immigrant casework files are kept. He said Ros-Lehtinen has not asked the INS what precisely she did on behalf of the accused spy.

``We help everybody who comes into our office. If we did something, it was probably a letter,'' Cortinas said.

The congresswoman has considerable contact with the immigration agency. Her office cranks out ``probably thousands'' of letters inquiring about visas and naturalization cases each year, Cortinas said.

INS, meanwhile, is refusing to say what it knows about how Gonzalez's family came here. Spokesman Russ Bergeron in Washington said prosecutors in Miami have told the INS to say ``no comment'' to all spy case inquiries.

He also said that INS gets ``hundreds of thousands'' of letters each year from members of Congress inquiring about specific immigration cases.

A congressional inquiry causes the agency to review its decisions on cases or report back on an individual's status. A letter from a member of Congress, however, does not help an applicant jump the queue ahead of other people, Bergeron said.