Gov. Rod Blagojevich's profanity-laced voice all over FBI wiretap recordings seeming to put a U.S. Senate seat up for auction and scheming to get Chicago Tribune editorial writers fired has put him in a horrible fix - but an old friend could make it much worse.

Convicted influence peddler Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who pumped more than $1 million into Blagojevich's campaigns, could take the witness stand and testify against him if the governor's case goes to trial.

"Tony's been almost like a secret partner in state government," Cindi Canary, director of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform said Friday. "He's been almost an unelected personnel director. He knows where the bodies are buried and knows where the money changed hands. That's why the feds have been trying to get him to talk."

While the status of cooperation talks between Rezko and prosecutors has been in question for weeks, a footnote in this week's federal complaint against Blagojevich confirmed Rezko is cooperating in hopes of winning a lighter sentence - but his "reliability has yet to be fully determined."

Blagojevich, 52, a two-term Democratic governor, was arrested Tuesday on charges of conspiracy to commit fraud and solicitation to commit bribery - charges that could send him to prison for 30 years.

Under Illinois law, the governor has the power to appoint someone to replace Obama in the Senate, and prosecutors say Blagojevich sought to swap the seat for a Cabinet post, ambassadorship, cash, or a high-paying job for himself or his wife. They say he also tried to use his position to pressure the Tribune into firing editorial writers who called for lawmakers to consider his impeachment.

But Blagojevich's legal woes were foreshadowed in a nine-week trial that ended in June with Rezko convicted of presiding over a scheme to squeeze $7 million in kickbacks out of a contractors and firms seeking business with the state.

The trial exposed a corrupt world of power, patronage and payoffs underlying a board that made key decisions on control over millions of state pension dollars.

Obama's name came up a handful of times at the trial as did those of other top Illinois politicians but there was no allegation of wrongdoing on his part.

But Blagojevich was deeply tangled in the allegations - some of which are repeated in a 76-page affidavit accompanying the criminal complaint against him.

Rezko began talking with federal authorities in August; it wasn't full-scale cooperation but talks exploring whether he might help in exchange for a break at sentencing. His sentencing was postponed indefinitely.

Last month, Rezko abruptly grumbled he was tired of sitting in solitary confinement and asked for sentencing as soon as possible and transfer out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center to a normal prison.

The Nov. 26 motion was a sign the talks hit a snag and his sentencing was set for Jan. 6.

But Thursday - just two days after Blagojevich's arrest - the federal judge presiding over Rezko's case canceled court filing deadlines and set a status hearing for next week in a move that could mean Rezko's sentencing could again be delayed.

Joseph J. Duffy, Rezko's chief defense counsel, declined to comment Friday.

Rezko may be being petulant.

"Rezko's proffers have been substantial but are not complete," the FBI notes in the complaint against Blagojevich. "And the government's efforts to fact check and corroborate Rezko's proffered information are not yet complete."

The note goes on to say that Rezko "at times has provided accounts that differ from those of other witnesses." It says that "because the government is not yet satisfied that Rezko's accounts are full and complete, the government is not relying on Rezko's account for probable cause."

That means if Blagojevich's attorneys try to have the charges against him thrown out at a preliminary hearing now scheduled for Jan. 14, federal prosecutors will not rely on testimony or other evidence from Rezko to show the charges should stand.

At Rezko's trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie E. Hamilton told jurors he was "the man behind the curtain pulling the strings." These days, Hamilton and her fellow Rezko prosecutors are focused on Blagojevich and act as if they couldn't care less whether the man behind the curtain spills the beans or remains silent.

Patrick M. Collins, a former federal prosecutor who sent former Gov. George Ryan to prison for corruption, said the wiretap evidence against Blagojevich so strong it dwarfs witnesses like Rezko who in any case can expect to be shown up as corrupt liars on the stand.

"They have reduced him to a footnote - literally," Collins said.

The apparent unconcern may be a message to Rezko that prosecutors don't need him and he had better start talking again or risk a long stretch in the big house. Without a sentencing break, he could go away for a decade or more under federal sentencing guidelines. And early next year, he is due to start a new trial on charges that he cheated the General Electric Capital Corp. out of $10 million.

But the government clearly would like to see him on the witness stand and no one is ruling out the possibility Rezko and the prosecutors might patch things up.

There's no way that could help Blagojevich.

As Better Government Association executive director Jay Stewart puts it: "Rod Blagojevich is already in a horrible situation and if Tony Rezko opens up he only makes a horrible situation worse."