INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A top executive of an Indiana casino company that is building a new $400 million casino in Gary has been indicted on federal charges of illegally funneling campaign contributions to a former state lawmaker’s unsuccessful congressional campaign, officials announced Tuesday.

The federal indictment charges Spectacle Entertainment vice president John Keeler and former Republican Sen. Brent Waltz, of Greenwood, with taking part in a scheme to direct more than $25,000 in illegal corporate contributions through straw donors to Waltz’s 2016 campaign.

Keeler was then an executive of Centaur Gaming, which sold Indiana’s two horse track casinos in Anderson and Shelbyville to Las Vegas-based Caesars Entertainment Corp. in 2018 for $1.7 billion. He was part of a group that formed Spectacle to buy the Gary casino operation along Lake Michigan and lobbied state legislators last year to allow its move to a more lucrative on-land location.