CHICAGO | A major Illinois power broker was indicted Thursday on charges of conspiring with convicted influence peddler Antoin "Tony" Rezko to shake down an investment firm for campaign contributions to embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

William Cellini Sr., 73, for decades one of the biggest behind-the-scenes Republican players in Illinois politics, was charged as part of Operation Board Games -- an ongoing federal investigation of corruption in the Blagojevich administration.

Blagojevich hasn't been charged with any wrongdoing and was not even mentioned by name in the indictment, which referred to him only as Public Official A.

"The governor was not involved in the improper activities alleged in the indictment," Blagojevich spokesman Lucio Guerrero said Thursday.

During Rezko's trial earlier this year, Judge Amy J. St. Eve and witnesses identified Blagojevich as Public Official A. The charges in Thursday's indictment essentially add Cellini as a participant in the same extortion conspiracy alleged in the Rezko case. Rezko was acquitted of extortion but convicted of fraud and other counts.

Cellini's indictment comes weeks after Rezko began talking with federal prosecutors in hopes of getting a lighter sentence for his June conviction on charges of scheming to squeeze payoffs from a contractor and money management firms seeking state business. But there was nothing to indicate how much, if any, of what he said led to Thursday's charges.

The indictment said admitted fixer Stuart Levine, the government's star witness at Rezko's trial, also was part of the alleged conspiracy.

Rezko's name has made its way into the presidential race because Sen. Barack Obama was one of many Illinois politicians for whom he raised money. Obama has been accused of no wrongdoing and was barely mentioned in Rezko's trial, but the connection has proven an embarrassment. Just this week, the McCain campaign acknowledged using robo-calls and direct mail to point out the relationship to potential voters. Obama gave about $159,000 from Rezko-related contributions to charity.

Cellini was charged in the four-count indictment Thursday with using political clout to threaten to block a $220 million allocation of state pension money for Capri Capital, a real estate investment firm owned by Hollywood producer Thomas Rosenberg.

The indictment said the millionaire lobbyist-businessman told Rosenberg in May 2004 he would not get the lucrative state business from the pension board because he had not come up with a contribution to the Blagojevich campaign fund.

It said, however, that Cellini and the other alleged plotters backed down after Rosenberg threatened to blow the whistle about the plan to federal investigators.

In the end, Capri got its allocation.

Defense attorney Dan K. Webb issued a statement Thursday saying Cellini "is completely innocent of these charges and he will fight this case because he has done absolutely nothing wrong."

Webb, a nationally prominent defense attorney who also was former Gov. George H. Ryan's lawyer at his racketeering and fraud trial, noted that while the jury convicted Rezko on other charges it acquitted him of attempting to extort Rosenberg.

"The evidence is the same today as it was then and it is disappointing that this indictment has now been brought without additional evidence," Webb said.