TALLAHASSEE -- Just as Congressman Connie Mack looked as if he’d escape a campaign controversy over a property tax break, his top Republican rival in the U.S. Senate race hosted a Wednesday press conference armed with a zinger over his other legal troubles.

“Connie Mack IV is the Charlie Sheen of Florida politics," said Sen. George LeMieux, a former U.S. senator. "Mack IV does not have the temperament or the character to serve in the United States Senate."

LeMieux wrapped his remarks around what he called Mack’s “rap sheet:” four physical confrontations when he was in his early 20s, one arrest and then a host of financial troubles that became clear during his divorce shortly after he was elected to Congress.

Mack’s court record was detailed in a Miami Herald story over the weekend, followed by a Tampa Tribune report that questioned whether the congressman was unlawfully receiving a homestead property-tax exemption at his Fort Myers condominium.

Lee County Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson said he’d double-check to make sure the congressman is legally getting the tax break — even though his wife, California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack has a homestead exemption in her district.

“I think they’ll be ok. That’s my gut feeling,” Wilkinson said. “But I now have an obligation to check this out.”

The issue cropped up shortly after Mack criticized Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson for taking advantage of another tax break, an agricultural exemption, on a Brevard property that has cows on it.

The controversy — followed by LeMieux’s haymaker Wednesday — was the latest sign that the U.S. Senate race, overshadowed by the presidential contest until recently, is becoming a heated affair.

Mack’s campaign chairman, Jeff Cohen, hit back with a written statement suggesting LeMieux was “amoral,” while questioning his work as the top adviser for former Gov. Charlie Crist, who left the Republican primary in his unsuccessful bid for U.S. Senate in 2010 against Marco Rubio.

“You probably thought that hugging Barack Obama was a good photo op for Charlie too,” Cohen said in his statement, referencing the physical and literal embrace Crist had for the president’s 2009 stimulus package, which Mack opposed.

The frontrunner in the Senate race, Mack has been on the defensive lately. He was at pains to explain his financial and legal troubles in his past and, on Sunday, he came in third place in a grass roots straw poll hosted by the Florida Federation of Republican Women.

LeMieux won first; Plant City businessman Mike McCalister came in second.

After the straw poll vote, Mack had to contend with the homestead controversy. His campaign and lawyer maintains he did nothing wrong.

Under Florida law, a family can only have one homestead exemption, which shields the taxable-value increase of a home. The reason: A homestead is a full-time home, and the state constitution seeks to encourage stable residents.

That means a family can only have a single permanent home — not two.

But what happens if two people with separate homesteads then marry and keep their separate homes? The law isn’t clear.

So it’s up to the property appraiser to decide initially. Then it can go to the courts.

“It is a conundrum,” Wilkinson said. “This can happen. It happened here in Lee County and my predecessor before I took office in 1980 was sued over it. And he lost.”