Council Wants More Money for Hogsett Harassment Investigation

INDIANAPOLIS — You’ve probably heard about the ongoing sexual harassment investigation tied to the City-County Building. Michael-Paul Hart, the Minority Leader of the City-County Council, says the city has already spent over $100,000 — and now they’re asking for $300,000 more to keep it going.

Hart says the investigation has several layers and includes updates to the city’s HR and policy practices.

“There’s no big yet,” Hart told WIBC’s Hammer and Nigel. “It’s the HR processes, they’re updating operational policies for the city. So that’s one arm of everything that they’re doing and where they’ve made some updates and changes.”

He also says it’s unlikely Mayor Joe Hogsett will face any consequences, even though his former deputy chief of staff, Thomas Cook, was at the center of it.

“Who wrote this contract? It must have been in an open-ended way,” Hart added.

Reports show Mayor Hogsett had been hearing complaints about Cook’s behavior since 2017 but kept him in a top position until late last year. Over the course of three investigations, Cook said the relationships were consensual — but all three reviews found he had inappropriate relationships with employees who worked under him. Cook was also married for much of that time.

The mayor’s office says it takes workplace misconduct seriously and brought in an outside law firm to handle the investigations.

Council Wants More Money for Hogsett Harassment Investigation  was originally published on wibc.com