A company owned by state Attorney General Jeff Landry had far exceeded Louisiana’s $50,000 work limit for contractors to operate legally without a state license when he finally applied for one, in June 2018.

By then, the Landry-owned Evergreen Contractors LLC had pulled in hundreds of thousands of dollars -- and possibly millions -- furnishing Mexican welders and pipefitters under temporary work visas for job sites in Calcasieu and Cameron parishes, records show.

But despite what appears to be a clear-cut violation of law, it remains unclear whether state or federal authorities are investigating the matter.

The Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors can fine and punish firms for failing to obtain proper licenses, and it sanctions hundreds of firms each year. But Brad Hassert, the board’s director of compliance, declined to say whether Landry’s firm is under investigation, citing a board policy.

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Hassert said investigations generally take several months and only become public when a case is scheduled for a public hearing before the full board. Hassert said most alleged violations are settled before reaching that stage.

Operating without such a license when required is also a crime; state law regards it as a misdemeanor punishable by up to $500 a day or three months in jail.

Landry, the state’s top law enforcement officer, has not offered any explanation for why Evergreen didn’t have the required license.

Authority for prosecuting unlicensed contractors falls to local district attorneys. The DAs in both of the parishes where records show Evergreen sent Mexican workers reviewed public documents provided by The Times-Picayune and The Advocate, including visa applications, job orders and invoices involving Evergreen’s work on a pair of heavy industrial projects

District Attorney John DeRosier of Calcasieu Parish referred a reporter to federal prosecutors in Lafayette. He said U.S. Attorney David Joseph’s office was aware of questions raised by the newspaper about documents that Evergreen submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor and federal immigration agencies in its successful bid for nearly 200 temporary foreign worker visas.

DeRosier would not elaborate, however, and Joseph declined to comment on the existence of any investigation, citing Justice Department policy.

In addition to Evergreen’s lack of licenses, several submissions by that firm and two others owned by Landry and his brother to federal officials for approval of those visas appear to include false assertions and fudged records, a recent investigation by the Times-Picayune and The Advocate found.

U.S. Department of Labor officials said earlier this month that they had already referred the matter of how the visas were awarded to the department’s independent Office of Inspector General.

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DeRosier, the Calcasieu Parish district attorney, said the documents leave questions about whether Evergreen was really a contractor, though that’s what the Landry-owned company claimed on its applications with federal agencies.

“I’m curious as to whether or not the services performed were of a contractor, or were of a person that supplies labor,” DeRosier said. “If you’re bidding on contractor work, there may be an issue there.”

Evergreen presented itself to federal agencies as a construction contractor needing a boost of foreign labor. State law requires firms to hold a contractor’s license even if they are only supplying workers for construction projects, as long as they are doing more than $50,000 in work, a board official confirmed.

DeRosier, however, said the documents suggest that “if in fact there would be any violations, it may be in those (visa) applications, and that would be in the feds’ area of investigation.”

He added: “To what extent, if in fact there will be any investigation, I’m not going to discuss that.”

Cameron Parish District Attorney Jennifer Jones, who was provided the same documents, called it “premature” to comment on possible violations of state law by Evergreen. She said she’d only consider a case if it was referred to her by law enforcement or the Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors.

“Whenever I get a file from them, I’ll be glad to review it,” Jones said Friday. “I’m not an investigative body.”

Neither Landry’s office spokesman nor his political spokesman responded to a new round of questions from the newspaper this week. They’ve also ignored repeated interview requests.

The Times-Picayune and The Advocate published a lengthy investigation on Feb. 14 into Landry’s pursuit of skilled Mexican labor.

The newspaper’s investigation revealed an effort by Landry; his accountant brother, Benjamin Landry, and two associates to game the visa application process.

The investigation found that Evergreen and the two other firms owned by the Landry brothers submitted dubious statements and documents to federal regulators as part of their bid to land guest-worker visas for hundreds of Mexican welders and pipefitters.

It also raised questions about efforts by Landry-owned firms to hire American workers for the positions. It’s unclear whether the companies hired any American welders or pipefitters to work on the projects.

Prior to the story's publication, Landry took an unusual preemptive step, posting to social media a polished 10-minute video featuring Benjamin Landry defending his brother and denouncing the newspaper’s investigation.

Hours after the story was published, Landry issued a 14-point defense of his business practices, accusing the newspaper of misleading readers with the story and headline. He disputed none of the facts the newspaper presented, which were based on hundreds of pages of records.

Landry, a political hardliner against illegal immigration, has been silent over the matter in the two weeks since and has yet to make a public appearance or personally respond since the story published.

On Tuesday, Landry posted a photo to personal Twitter and Facebook accounts that shows him smiling inside the lodge at Yellowstone Club, a private Montana ski resort frequented by celebrities and business magnates. Landry was sitting at a table adorned with strings of colored beads; the resort was putting on an “Aprés Ski” party for Mardi Gras that day.

A day earlier, a message for Louisianans was posted on Landry’s official Twitter page, encouraging people rebuilding after storms to read an attached booklet “to help protect yourself from becoming a victim of fraud & #scams!”

Attached was a tip sheet with 11 pointers to avoid getting swindled. Tip #2 includes this advice: “Make sure the contractor is licensed through the Louisiana Licensing Board for Contractors.”

The Landry team partnered on the deal for the Mexican laborers with Marco Pesquera, a Houston labor broker who began serving a 3-year federal prison sentence in December after pleading guilty last year to a visa fraud conspiracy.

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Pesquera told the newspaper the tandem used many of the same deceptions he had honed over years of criminal activity, before the Landrys forced out Pesquera in May 2018 over late payments.

The records Pesquera provided to the newspaper include emails that reveal Landry’s direct involvement in lobbying the developer to boot Pesquera, though Benjamin Landry managed the companies day to day.

Neither Benjamin Landry nor Juan Castillo, Evergreen’s vice president, have responded to numerous inquiries from the newspaper.

Evergreen applied for and received a total of 195 “H-2B” foreign worker visas in late 2017, based on work orders for millions of dollars in construction labor that the company filed with federal regulators as evidence of their need to reach across the U.S.-Mexico border for help.

Most of the jobs were for construction of Cameron LNG, a multi-billion dollar liquefied natural gas plant being built in Hackberry, south of Lake Charles.

Landry personally obtained a heavy construction license for Evergreen in June 2018. By that time, however, his company had already billed for at least $873,000 in welding and pipefitting work at jobsites in Cameron and Calcasieu parishes, according to Evergreen invoices later filed in federal court by CB&I, the corporate builder leading the projects.

CB&I ultimately cut checks to Evergreen totaling more than $4.7 million, a figure that represents only a portion of what Landry’s firm was paid in the deal.

Ken Naquin, CEO of the Louisiana Association of General Contractors, an industry lobbying group, called the state license requirement an important safeguard against unqualified contractors and fraud.

“The whole reason why a contractor has a license is to show, one, that they can do the work they’re licensed for, and two, to protect the health, safety and well-being of the citizenry,” Naquin said.

He said the state agency sometimes grants waivers when a contractor is licensed in one category of builder’s license and needs a license in a second category.

But Naquin said the rules are clear that every firm registered as a business with the Secretary of State must be licensed if it does work over $50,000.

Naquin declined to comment on the situation with the Jeff Landry-owned firms and their lack of state licenses, saying he hadn’t been aware of it before the newspaper reported it. He said there are about 24,000 licensed contractors in the state.

“We rely on our Licensing Board for Contractors to handle that. They have inspectors. They travel the state every month. They have meetings," Naquin said. “Can they catch everybody? Certainly not.”