TALLAHASSEE - A BellSouth vice president and lobbyist threatened to withhold freebies for some Miami-area lawmakers last week if they voted for legislation halting the largest telephone rate increase in state history, lawmakers said Wednesday.

''We butter your bread. We're family,'' lawmakers quoted Eliseo ''Tito'' Gomez as telling one legislator. ``Tell the other freshmen they won't get any tickets or seats in the skybox if they aren't with us.''

Gomez denies saying anything resembling those comments when he called state Rep. Julio Robaina -- a veteran BellSouth employee. The call came just as the Miami Republican prepared to vote on the measure last week on the House floor.

Robaina refuses to publicly discuss the details.

Whatever was said, the conversation clearly rattled the 24-year service technician: Robaina missed the vote initially and then changed it three times after the fact on March 31.

Some of Robaina's Miami-area colleagues say they know why he changed his vote so often: He was scared he'd lose his job.

They say Robaina told them what Gomez said and it bothered them because it sheds light on the hard-ball tactics of the telecommunications industry. And it might have been illegal under a state law that forbids threatening a public servant, Rep. Gus Barreiro said.

''It sounded to me like he threatened a lawmaker, and it's not right,'' said Barreiro. The Miami Beach Republican and another lawmaker who asked for anonymity recounted to The Herald the comments that Robaina told them Gomez made.

''BellSouth has to realize that this isn't the way people should perceive the way they do business,'' Barreiro said.

NO COMPLAINT FILED

Still, Barreiro added, he's not filing a complaint and he doesn't suspect that Robaina will either, because he wants to hang on to his job.

Robaina is a 24-year veteran service technician at BellSouth.

With no complaint in hand, Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs said he probably won't look into the matter.

He said the law in question, which is most often used to prosecute people who threaten public servants such as police officers, would be difficult to use in a case where he doesn't have a willing witness who feels he was explicitly threatened.

''I don't know if a lobbyist threatening a legislator works or not with this,'' Meggs said.

'In the Legislature, there's always a veiled threat: `If you don't vote my way, I won't support you or your issues.' This [the Robaina matter] takes on a different level of threat, because you have a lawmaker whose employer is asking him to vote a certain way.''

State Rep. J.C. Planas, a Miami Republican, said Robaina later told him of Gomez's alleged threat to block access to BellSouth's skybox at Pro Player Stadium to him and to Miami Republican Rep. David Rivera.

Planas said he scoffed.

''Yeah, I've gone to the skybox once or twice, but it doesn't influence my vote. It doesn't influence my vote that they backed me in my campaign and gave me support,'' Planas said. ``At the end of the day, when all of this clears, I think everyone will realize it was just something said in the heat of the moment. And Tito was probably getting pressured too. It's not a big deal.''

Rivera couldn't be reached for comment.

Gomez couldn't be reached Wednesday, but told The Herald the day before that he only called Robaina on the floor of the House to get a sense of how the vote was going, particularly with lawmakers from Miami-Dade County. He said Barreiro, along with state representatives Manny Prieguez and Juan Zapata, misunderstood the nature of his telephone call to Robaina.

Barreiro and Prieguez said Gomez called them Wednesday and reiterated that he never made any threats.

It didn't impress Prieguez.

''I did not misunderstand my colleague. He explained to me exactly what happened. I saw his reactions. He didn't even have to tell me. I saw how he reacted afterward. I saw his face. I spent an hour with him,'' Prieguez said. ``It was pretty clear what BellSouth expected from him.''

Like Planas, Prieguez and Barreiro both said they have gone to the BellSouth skybox a handful of times at Pro Player Stadium to watch football and baseball games and that it has never influenced their vote. BellSouth strongly backed Robaina in his race for the Legislature in 2002, when the telecommunications industry lavished more than $5 million on political parties and campaigns.

Prieguez was one of the few Republicans last year to vote against the bill that allowed telephone companies to attempt to raise rates in Florida by nearly $350 million.

The outcry from the rate hike led House Speaker Johnnie Byrd, a Republican U.S. Senate candidate, to propose the legislation to freeze the rates. Byrd's top lieutenants had to cajole and arm-twist members to win passage of the measure, which appears all but doomed in the Senate.

YES VOTE

In the end, Robaina, who voted last year for the legislation that allowed for the rate hike, voted to freeze it after speaking with House leaders. Not so for state Rep. Wilbert Holloway, a Miami Democrat and also an employee of Bellsouth. Holloway, who is external affairs director for the phone company, voted for the original legislation, and opposed the rate freeze.

Holloway said the company has never told him how to vote. But, he said, the same can't be said for Byrd's House, which is notorious for punishing members who don't toe the line.

''That's the real story. Members are being told by leadership how to vote, and they don't vote their conscience,'' Holloway said.