'I kept saying no': Women accuse top Hogsett aide of preying on subordinates for years

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett's right-hand man targeted younger women who worked under him, showering them with praise, poetry and gifts and promising career growth as he pressured them toward intimacy and unwanted sexual encounters, three women told IndyStar.

The women accuse Thomas Cook of abusing his power for nearly a decade while serving under the Democratic mayor in a variety of roles, including five years as chief deputy mayor, the No. 2 position in city government.

Cook, presented with IndyStar's reporting, did not answer questions on the record or respond to specific allegations. He did send a written statement later.

"Dating back a decade, I had consensual relationships that violated a trust placed in me," Cook said in the statement. "At no time did I seek to use my professional position to further those personal relationships. That being said, I understand these situations have raised legitimate concerns and I apologize to all those involved."

Hogsett heard complaints about Cook's behavior as far back as 2017, IndyStar found, yet he kept Cook in his inner circle until late last year. Cook repeatedly received the benefit of the doubt over six years and three investigations as he characterized repeated encounters with subordinate employees as consensual.

All three investigations concluded Cook, who was married for much of the time period, engaged in inappropriate relationships with employees in subordinate roles, according to a Hogsett administration statement provided to IndyStar.

"The City takes any and all allegations of inappropriate workplace conduct extremely seriously," the Hogsett administration said, adding it hired an outside law firm to conduct the investigations.

The third-term mayor declined to be interviewed for this story, although the allegations involved Cook's work on Hogsett's campaigns as well as for the city.

The administration said it reprimanded and disciplined Cook three times, finally resulting in his resignation from city employment in 2020 and, later, his departure from Hogsett's 2023 mayoral campaign.

But two of the women accusing Cook of sexual harassment say Hogsett could have done more to prevent abuse if he had acted sooner and provided safer avenues for employees to report incidents.

'Groomed all day'

Lauren Roberts, a deputy campaign manager during Hogsett’s first mayoral bid, reported Cook's behavior to the mayor in an email in 2017 and in person in 2019, she told IndyStar.

Although the Hogsett administration told IndyStar it investigated Roberts' complaint and disciplined Cook, Roberts said she was not previously aware of an investigation.

“I tried to blow the whistle years ago, and it was almost more traumatic than what actually happened,” Roberts said.

Hogsett hosted an Election Day party at a downtown Indianapolis hotel room in November 2014. By the end of that night, Roberts said, she and Cook were the last two people left in the room. Roberts was intoxicated.

"I remember lying down in one of (the beds). I was being groomed all day, plied with alcohol. I was very vulnerable," Roberts said. "I know we ended up in the same bed. I know we made out. I don't know how much further it went than that."

A few weeks later, Roberts said, Cook told her he loved her while they were walking to a business meeting.

Shortly thereafter, Roberts said, she established clear boundaries with Cook. After that, Roberts felt her role on the campaign diminish, she said.

"He didn't want me in those rooms, didn't want me on those calls," Roberts said of key campaign meetings. "Had I not set that boundary, had I not stopped giving him the attention he wanted, he probably would have included me."

IndyStar typically does not name people who say they have experienced sexual misconduct. Roberts agreed to be named. She is among three women who told IndyStar that Cook sexually harassed them. One said Cook sexually assaulted her. Cook has not been charged with a crime.

In each case, the women were younger and reported up to Cook, who is now 39.

Investigation reaction:Former Hogsett aide Thomas Cook out of a job after women speak out in IndyStar story

Pattern of inappropriate relationships

In separate interviews, the three women described a consistent pattern of abuse of power by Cook as he managed Hogsett's first mayoral campaign, ascended to chief of staff and then left city employment in 2020 for a private law firm. Cook is now a partner at Bose, McKinney & Evans, where he represents clients that do business with the city.

The three women said Cook was their boss when he sexually harassed them. One alleged that Cook engaged in inappropriate behavior as recently as last year. The women shared text messages, emails and letters documenting their experiences with IndyStar. The women also previously told their stories to friends and colleagues, several of whom verified to IndyStar that they heard the women's accounts.

Cook promised to help younger women advance their careers in government and Democratic politics. He inundated them with compliments about their intellect, sometimes sending “constant, suffocating texts” at all hours, one woman said.

He liked to drink with them — but preferred solo meetups over groups. On two occasions with different women, they say, he invited them to drinks characterized as group meetups, only for them to discover when they arrived that it would just be the two of them.

All three women separately described Cook’s conduct as grooming, which is a process of manipulation used by abusers to gain trust with a potential victim and “coerce them to agree to the abuse,” according to RAINN, a national anti-violence advocacy group.

The women said they felt trapped into continuing relationships with Cook due to the power he held over their careers.

“Remembering how I felt and what it was like working with Thomas feels like a surreal haze,” one of the women told IndyStar in a statement. “I recall feeling helpless, analyzing texts, messages and body language, searching for clues to explain why I felt trapped. I was too scared to say anything because I feared the consequence of losing my job or my job becoming a living hell.”

The mayor’s office acknowledged spending nearly $43,000 on “investigations and resulting sanctions” surrounding Cook’s behavior. Taft attorney Mick Terrell, a Hogsett donor, conducted the investigations.

The mayor’s office said that Cook was first reprimanded in October 2017 and "prohibited from having any romantic relationships with any coworker, subject to immediate discipline, up to and including termination.” That sanction was “based upon Mr. Cook’s inappropriate romantic advances" to Roberts, the campaign staffer.

In December 2020, Hogsett accepted Cook’s resignation, according to the mayor’s office, “for violating the 2017 reprimand and prohibition as a result of a romantic relationship, first reported in October 2020, that Mr. Cook had with a subordinate coworker.” 

That former employee, who rose to a prominent role in Hogsett's administration, declined comment and is not accusing Cook of sexual misconduct. Both Cook and the woman characterized the relationship as consensual during the investigation, the city said.

Daniel Grundmann, a senior lecturer at Indiana University who spent 13 years as human resources director for the city of Bloomington, said relationships between high-ranking leaders and low-level employees should be disallowed "without question."

"If there's a power relationship, consent is irrelevant because you're putting the organization at risk," Grundmann said.

‘I look at you and see an equal’

One of the women IndyStar interviewed, a former employee in the mayor’s office who started working with Cook when she was an intern, said Cook’s attention made her feel important — at first.

“I think you’ve been underestimated by too many people and sometimes I can look at you and, at least I think, it seems like we are the only two people who get what’s really going on,” Cook told the woman, who is nine years younger, in a 2018 text message. “And I look at you and see an equal, not a baby.”

The woman told IndyStar she had an off-and-on relationship with Cook, which she now describes as abusive, that began in March 2018, while she reported to him.

"It felt normal at times," she said. "I know he would say it was a consensual relationship and, for a while, I thought that, too. But I don't think there could ever be a consensual relationship with someone with that magnitude of power and someone who's 23 (years old). There's no scenario where that's fair."

At the beginning, he often asked her to go out for drinks.

“I genuinely thought you were going to allow me to get you drunk so you could tell me what department head job you want in 2 years,” he said in another text in 2018.

Cook also liked to perform grand gestures. Cook ordered a DVD player to be delivered via Amazon to her apartment in February 2018 after he had lent her two movies. 

“It will be there in the next hour,” Cook texted. “Open a cheap bottle of wine. My taste in movies will look great by comparison to this day. And don’t feel alone. You aren’t.”

Later that evening, Cook acknowledged in a text message that he might have crossed a line.

“I’ve never been good at boundaries, to a fault,” Cook texted. “I sincerely apologize if I crossed one. It wasn’t borne (of) anything other than exuberant ignorance. It won’t happen again.”

Two days later, on Valentine’s Day, Cook placed a poem on the woman's desk.

“The valentine of desire is pasted over my heart and we are still not touching,” the poem, by author Billy Collins, begins.

After their relationship had soured, on one occasion in March 2019, Cook invited the woman to an Indianapolis bar, The Ball and Biscuit, which she thought was a group meetup. When she arrived, she was surprised to discover he was the only one at the bar.

"It looked like I tricked you into being with me," Cook acknowledged in a text message.

“I’m not a predator,” he added. “I’m not tricking you into this. And I shouldn’t have tried to meet you secretly. You gave me clear lines. I f----- up by not inviting you the right way.”

Cook's behavior often resulted in a “hostile environment at work,” the woman said.

“Given that you didn’t really look at me today, I assume you’re still not wanting me to talk to you and that’s really fine,” Cook texted her on the night of Hogsett’s state of the city speech in 2018. “I’m going to just focus on being a good coworker, too.”

On another occasion, in March 2019, Cook approached her in the kitchen during work hours at Marion County Democratic Party headquarters.

Afterward, he texted: “I’m sorry I said anything and if I made you feel cornered in there. It was an incredibly stupid impulse to bring it up.”

Later that month, Cook sent 68 unanswered text messages in which he demanded more emotional support during an argument. He showed up at the woman's apartment the next night. He called and asked to be let up, saying he just wanted to talk, according to the woman.

“I’ll keep my pants on,” she recalled Cook saying to her. “That’s the only reason I invited him up,” she said.

But twice that evening he performed sexual acts on her despite her pleas for him to stop, she said.

“I kept saying no,” she said.

Cook declined to comment to IndyStar on specific claims made by the woman.

The 'puppet master'

Cook is a little-known figure outside Indiana politics and government. But, behind the scenes, Hogsett gave Cook broad discretion to direct his policy and messaging initiatives. Where Hogsett appeared, Cook could often be seen pacing in the background.

Cook was "the puppet master behind it all,” one accuser told IndyStar. He stood between the mayor and all other employees on campaigns and within city government. Cook also worked for Hogsett when he was U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Indiana.

Cook's position atop the city’s flow chart meant that almost anyone employed within the mayor's administration answered to him one way or another — including anyone who might want to report his behavior, or any supervisor or human resources representative who might receive a complaint.

On paper, there is a path around the chief of staff. The city's human resources department reports to the mayor via the controller's office.

"That's not the way it worked internally," said a former administration official, who requested anonymity out of fear of retribution. "The chief of staff runs everything. Everybody knew that."

Cook's looming presence over every facet of Hogsett's campaigns and mayoral administration made it feel impossible to report his behavior, the women told IndyStar.

Behavior wasn’t ‘properly addressed’

The women questioned Hogsett’s handling of the allegations against Cook. They called for a better system to be put in place for those who report sexual harassment.

“It kind of feels like over and over again, we had to advocate for ourselves and stand up for ourselves, because there was no one else who was going to do it for us,” one former employee said. 

That woman said she may have come forward earlier if there was a stronger reporting process in place.

“I already knew of previous instances of reported behavior that, in my mind, weren’t properly addressed,” she said. “If the mayor had acted at that time, it could have prevented what happened to me, what happened to future people, so I definitely hold him accountable to that.”

When that staffer came forward in September 2023, Hogsett was in the final, frenzied weeks leading up to Election Day. He had brought Cook in to lead the campaign in an unpaid role despite having forced him to resign from the city because of inappropriate relationships there.

The mayor’s office told IndyStar that Hogsett in October 2023 directed Cook to “no longer have any association” with his reelection campaign, and for his professional services contracts to be discontinued “based upon new allegations of inappropriate romantic conduct with a subordinate coworker.”

That was more than four years after Roberts approached Hogsett in person at Indianapolis City Market to complain about his lack of response to her concerns about Cook.

“I’m not really sure why this process has been so difficult, but I’m just really disappointed, frankly, and it wasn’t OK,” Roberts told Hogsett in January 2019, according to an audio recording obtained by IndyStar.

“Well, I’m sorry about that,” Hogsett replied. “But I did get your messages.”

Contact Hayleigh Colombo at hcolombo@indystar.com or follow her on X at @hayleighcolombo.

Contact James Briggs at 317-444-4732 or james.briggs@indystar.com. Follow him on X and Threads at @JamesEBriggs.