Joe Hogsett Kept His Creepy Cook Around For Nearly A Decade Despite Repeated Warnings

Tony Katz:

Three weeks ago, Hayleigh Colombo and James Briggs over at the Indy Star. Wrote the story about the accusations of sexual impropriety by Thomas Carl Cook, former chief of staff and deputy mayor of Joe Hogsett, the mayor of Indianapolis.

The story was shocking. The allegations were ugly. And very specific and clear in these allegations was that Joe Hogsett, the mayor of Indianapolis, did nothing. Yesterday over at Mirror Indy. MirrorIndy.org. Ryan Martin, Jenna Watson and Peter Blanchard. Followed up on the story: “Trapped: A city leader’s abuse of power and how 3 women got out”. It is absolutely stunning reporting, including audio, including the words of those people who claim the harassment themselves.

Clip from Mirror Indy Story below

Tony Katz:

Peter Blanchard, one of the authors of this piece (below), joins me right now to discuss it. Let’s start with a timeline. Did you start working on this story when you read the IndyStar story? Or had you been working on this story independently?

Peter Blanchard:

Well, good morning Tony and appreciate you having me on this morning. We started reporting on this story back in June, which is when we started talking to some of these women about their experiences, and really what we set out to do was to tell these women stories to us. This was, a story about an abuse of power, a person who used his position of authority in ways that would really make these women feel trapped.

Tony Katz:

In all of these instances, all these allegations, these women worked specifically for Thomas Carl Cook, the former chief of staff, former deputy mayor, under his instruction, correct? He was their direct supervisor?

Peter Blanchard:

He was their supervisor and as the mayor’s chief of staff, Thomas Cook was the second most powerful man in in city government for a number of years in the Hogsett administration. The mayor trusted him not just to lead policy decisions, run the daily operations of the city, but also to lead his mayoral campaign and Cook even after being asked to resign in 2020, after a second relationship with the subordinate came to light, the mayor kept him on his 2023 campaign until about six weeks before the election, when a third woman came forward.

Tony Katz:

Talking to Peter Blanchard of Mirror Indy, the article “Trapped: A city leader’s abuse of power and how 3 women got out” is an absolutely must read. We know from the reporting that there was one. Sexual relationship and then there were two clearly attempts at sexual relationships and attempts at an intimacy. Did you find that there were more stories out there? And as a matter of follow up, when you did these interviews, did you find these stories believable?

Peter Blanchard:

Absolutely, Tony. I mean in the case of one of these women, she had text messages going back to when she first met Thomas and other women had audio recordings. There’s other materials that we have that, you know, didn’t make it. Into the article, but we ultimately obtained extensive amount of materials, hundreds of pages of text messages, emails, voicemails, voice memos, physical letters, videos, and we also talked to other current and former city officials. A lot of whom didn’t want to go on the record to because they feared professional repercussions for speaking out. But they heard the stories of these women directly from them and they believe them.

Tony Katz:

This gets uglier the deeper you go into it. You started working this story you said in June, which would lead me to think that this had been something that had been discussed before June. In your reporting, did you find that there were any members of the Hogsett administration, the Indianapolis City County Council, a civic leaders who knew about these allegations of Hogsett’s #2 and said nothing about it?

Peter Blanchard:

Yeah. I mean, one thing we found is that I think a lot of people in and around, not just city government but democratic politics knew this sort of thing was going on but stayed silent. And there can be a number of reasons for that. People fear for their own professional repercussions and careers that they speak out, and also, they might not feel it’s their place to do so. And the other thing is when the first woman, Lauren Roberts, came forward in 2017. She was, and this was two years after her experience, she was very outspoken and insisted on personal meetings with the mayor. She urged the mayor, pleaded with him, “please do something about this person” and her concerns were dismissed and I can only imagine how demoralizing that was. And I can’t emphasize this enough, Tony. This story doesn’t happen without the strength and the courage of these women by coming forward to the media. After trying to fix the system internally failed, after all other avenues failed, they chose to come to the media, which is no easy thing to do, and ultimately we were happy that their stories were able to be told.

Tony Katz:

Talking to Peter Blanchard of MirrorIndy.org about the allegations against Thomas Carl Cook, the former chief of staff, Deputy Mayor to Joe Hogsett, the mayor of Indianapolis, and the story, as much as it’s the story of these women who have come forward and did come to you and we are appreciative that they didn’t cannot have been easy. This is also a story of how Joe Hogsett kept somebody on his staff. So, you reached out to Joe Hogsett’s office? Did they respond for this article?

Peter Blanchard:

Yeah, we reached out to the mayor’s office several times asking for an interview and so did James Briggs and Hayleigh Colombo Columbo of the Indy Star when they published their investigation a few weeks ago. The mayor has declined interviews on this subject, instead sending statements what I can tell you and what we know from our reporting is that the mayor knew about Cook’s behavior as early as 2017. That was when his former campaign worker Lauren Roberts came forward and 1st approached him about her negative experience on that campaign. The mayor said in response to that, that Cook was reprimanded, and it was put on his record basically that this had happened, and if it happened again, he would face consequences. And of course it did happen again. Three years later in in 2020 is when the mayor learned about a second relationship with a a subordinate. And at that point the mayor asked Cook to resign. Did not fire him but gave him the opportunity to resign in 2020. And so, at that point, Thomas Cook was out of city government. But the mayor kept him on his 2023 campaign even after he knew about this a second relationship. So that’s what we know from our reporting. But thus far, the mayor has declined to speak with us.

Tony Katz:

So far out, outside of the questions we’ve asked at WIBC, the only member of the Indianapolis City County Council to make any level of public statement I’ve seen to date is a socialist, Jesse Brown, who has said Joe Hogsett should resign.

Tony Katz:

Have you heard from any members? Of Indianapolis elected officials or civic leaders saying privately or publicly that Joe Hogsett should resign because of this?

Peter Blanchard:

So far, no one has come out with nearly as strong of a call to action as City Councilor Jesse Brown calling for the mayor’s resignation. But I think we’re going to hear from more of them in the coming days. The City Council is expected to meet on Monday and they’re starting to begin their budget process. For 2025 and so I think you, you might hear some remarks from them, but I think it shows that you know, the mayor has a lot of power in the city, and perhaps some counselors here repercussions if they come forward. It’s unclear at this point we really haven’t heard from them but. We’re hoping that they start to speak on this issue.