Lawyers Looking Into Hogsett Lay Out Steps Of Harassment Investigation

Source: Indianapolis City-County Building. Picture from Indy.gov

INDIANAPOLIS — On Friday, the special committee looking into claims of sexual harassment by those within Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration met with the independent law firm brought in to conduct the investigation.

The law firm Fisher Phillips told the committee they have not begun delving into the meat of the claim just yet. Instead, they have been gathering context and information related to what laws do and do not constitute sexual harassment. From there they plan to run the ins and outs of the case through those filters to get to the bottom of what happened.

The investigation centers around claims of sexual harassment made by Hogsett’s former chief of staff Thomas Cook, who resigned from the mayor’s office in 2020, but was then hired by the mayor to help run his 2023 re-election campaign.

Two women who worked in both the mayor’s office and on Hogsett’s campaign believe Hogsett knew about the abuse that they say was happening and chose not to act. Lauren Roberts was one of those women.

“I’m curious what kind of accountability for other people in power aside from the mayor who were aware of my case and perhaps others, I don’t know, but didn’t take the action that they should have at the time,” said Roberts on WISH-TV.

The law firm explained to the committee that there are higher standards of reporting for those in upper management positions. They said managers can be held liable for their actions if it’s deemed they didn’t follow the law.

We now enter phase two of the investigation.

The law firm will analyze all of the sexual harassment accusations made against employees of the mayor’s administration to see if the response to those accusations meets legal compliance with state and federal law.

The next investigative committee meeting is likely to be Dec. 4th.

Lawyers Looking Into Hogsett Lay Out Next Steps Of Harassment Investigation was originally published on wibc.com