Hogsett Maintains He Didn’t Know About Accusations Against Cook Until 2023
Source: WISH-TV / other
INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett spoke directly to reporters for the first time on Wednesday since sexual harassment accusations swept through his office revolving around his former chief of staff.
Earlier this month it came to light that former Hogsett Chief of Staff Thomas Cook was accused of making romantic advances on multiple women working for Hogsett as early as 2014. At that time he was employed by Hogsett’s campaign when he was first running for mayor.
The harassment is said to have carried over into Hogsett’s first term after which Cook was let go by Hogsett’s office and went on to get a job with a prestigious law firm with many connections to the Indiana Democratic Party. Cook was then brought back by Hogsett to work on his campaign for his final term in 2023.
“He had not worked for me for three of four years,” Hogsett said. “He offered to help the campaign, got started in earnest in, I believe, November or December of 2022.”
Hogsett said at that time he had no idea of the sexual harassment accusations against Cook.
“I was made aware of additional allegations against Mr. Cook in September of 2023,” he said. “I didn’t know anything about 2018 or 2019, until September of 2023.”
That’s when Cook was let go by his campaign. In July, the mayor’s office released a statement saying that Cook was “reprimanded and prohibited from having romantic relationships with any coworker” in October of 2017.
Since the accusations against Cook came to light, Hogsett’s office has begun both internal and external reviews of the claims. They have also made an internal city website for workers to report sexual harassment. He has also signed an executive order outlining new sexual harassment training guidelines which are to be reviewed every year as opposed to every two years like before.
“That order I issued last week, which requires sexual harassment training for all city employees annually, every year, is something, in retrospect, I wish we had implemented earlier,” Hogsett said.
Sign up for the WIBC Newsletter to receive the latest news updates!
Even with all that the Indianapolis City-County Council is not satisfied and has opened an independent investigation of their own. Hogsett said he’s not sure what will come of that investigation.
“You guess is as good as mine,” he said. “We obviously have some idea of the nature of the allegations that were made by Miss (Lauren) Roberts and Miss (Caroline) Ellert, but how broad that investigation becomes, I guess that’s to be determined.”
