INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Mayor Joe Hogsett on Monday said he will make changes to the city’s sexual harassment policies to prevent a repeat of a scandal that has rocked his administration.

Monday night’s meeting of the City-County Council was the first since news broke multiple former staffers accused Hogsett’s former chief of staff, Thomas Cook, of pervasive sexual harassment over a number of years. Hogsett had said little about the allegations publicly and did not answer reporters’ questions as he walked into the council chamber.

Two of the former staffers, Lauren Roberts and Caroline Ellert, talked to News 8 on Monday about their experiences and the response to them. They sat just feet from Hogsett at the meeting. After making his annual budget presentation, Hogsett turned to them.

“I want to tell you both, and the third anonymous individual who also shared her story, how sorry I am for the harm that has occurred and I apologize profoundly,” he said. “No one can possibly understand the pain that you have endured but know that your decision to speak out for changes to better protect women and men of this city has not been in vain.”

Roberts and Ellert in a letter to city leaders demanded a number of changes to prevent any future employees from going through what they did. Their demands include conducting an independent, third-party review of the city’s existing sexual harassment policies, training all city employees on their rights in the workplace and providing no-cost mental health services to survivors.

Councilors on Friday committed to implementing many of their demands, and Hogsett did the same on Monday. He said he will set up an anonymous reporting system to allow anyone to report instances of sexual misconduct. In addition, he said the more comprehensive prevention training previously reserved for supervisors will be extended to all city employees.

The council took initial steps of its own Monday night. Councilors referred two resolutions to the committee, one to investigate the accusations against Cook and another to review the city’s sexual harassment prevention mechanisms. Councilor Jessica McCormick said any investigation will have to take extreme care to ensure any identifiable information about further victims does not come to light without their knowledge and consent.

“We need to make sure we separate our activist side from our Councilor side so we do this correctly,” Councilor Ali Brown said. “That is our focus right now and it’s hard. It’s hard to see that your friends went through this. I think a lot of us are just focused on making sure that this kind of thing never happens again.”

Hogsett has said Roberts’ complaints about Cook’s conduct were investigated when she first reported him in 2017 and Cook was disciplined at the time. In a series of posts on X, Roberts said she was never interviewed for any investigation and Hogsett has never released any documentation from the investigation to any of the survivors.

“Had Mayor Hogsett taken my May 2017 report seriously and had his disciplinary action been effective, the mayor could have prevented the abuse that Caroline endured from Thomas,” she wrote.

Help is available for victims of domestic violence. Below is a list of suggested resources on the Domestic Violence Network website:

• Indiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence: 24-hour hotline available at 800-332-7385
• Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault and Human Trafficking
• The Julian Center
• Indiana Child Abuse Hotline: 800-800-5556
• National Domestic Violence Hotline: 800-799-7233 or text START to 88788
• National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-4673