Trapped: A city leader’s abuse of power and how 3 women got out

Editor’s note: A short summary of this story was aired on News Now Warsaw via Network Indiana about MirrorIndy’s story. Below is an in-depth (and slightly edited) version of that story by the original reporters at MirrorIndy, an Indianapolis-based publication.

By Ryan Martin, Jenna Watson
and Peter Blanchard
MirrorIndy

I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it
God only knows what I’d be without you

— “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys

When that song hit the jukebox, the woman saw it as fated. Maybe, she thought, we’re in a tragic love story.

It was Feb. 26, 2018. Caroline Ellert was an entry-level staffer in Mayor Joe Hogsett’s office, where she helped with the mayor’s schedule and responded to letters. The man sitting beside her in the bar was Thomas Cook, the mayor’s chief of staff and the second most powerful man in city government.

She trusted him. So when he offered to talk to Caroline about her career and political aspirations, she listened. But she was initially uncomfortable meeting him alone for drinks, even though he continued insisting. After all, Cook was her boss, he was married with a child, and he was nine years older at 32.

For months, she evaded the prospect by using tactics that women learn to politely reject unwanted advances without severing important connections. She suggested they grab beers in group settings or promised she would meet him alone “some other time.” Yet through his insistence, as detailed in hundreds of pages of text messages, Caroline also saw someone complimenting her work ethic and her intellect, sharing her interests in poetry and film, and trusting her with increasingly personal details.

So on that night, Caroline finally agreed to a drink. The dimly lit Dorman Street Saloon was a favorite of his, known by city and campaign officials as a center of power where Cook routinely held court among the worn leather stools, red felt pool table and 1960s movie posters.

What she felt kindling between them was thrilling. As she wondered what to do next, “God Only Knows” played on the jukebox, and she heard in the lyrics a permission to stop worrying so much. To let down her guard.

But the song wasn’t fated; the moment was manufactured. She didn’t know it then but would later learn Cook selected that song.

It also wasn’t a tragic love story. Now, she looks back and sees a naive 23-year-old who was a victim of sexual harassment, emotional manipulation and grooming — and, later, workplace hostility when she tried to set boundaries.

Cook, who is now 39, did not respond to multiple phone calls, text messages or emails from Mirror Indy requesting an interview. He also did not respond to repeated messages that detailed what would be reported in this article. He has not been charged with a crime.

Caroline would learn a lot in the years that followed. She would talk to other women who felt victimized by Cook, including one named Lauren Roberts who tried for years to get anyone to do something — anything — to make sure other women wouldn’t have to experience what she did while working for Cook.

Among those who did not respond to Lauren’s emails was the only man in city government with more power than Cook: Mayor Hogsett.

Hogsett, who declined multiple interview requests from Mirror Indy, decided to retain his top aide — which kept Cook in power over several young women like Caroline. And even after learning Cook had an inappropriate relationship with another subordinate in 2020, Hogsett initially allowed Cook to remain involved with the mayor’s re-election campaign last year.

Caroline has recently learned two more things: Why she needs to forgive her younger self, and how to challenge the failing systems of power that protect the behavior of men like Cook.

The first campaign in 2014 and 2015

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
|And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.

— “I Have Longed to Move Away” by Dylan Thomas

In 2014, a little more than three years before that night at Dorman Street, a different woman joined Joe Hogsett’s upstart campaign to return a Democrat to the mayor’s office.

Lauren Roberts, who was 26, had been working in Washington, D.C., but moved back to Indiana to spend more time with family. She also needed to focus on her health after starting treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder based off her experiences as a survivor of child sexual abuse and another sexual assault as an adult.

But she wanted to continue working in politics. A couple of months after beginning treatment, she became Hogsett’s deputy campaign manager.

She reported directly to campaign manager Thomas Cook, the 29-year-old who followed Hogsett from the U.S. Attorney’s Office to the campaign trail.

Hogsett’s election was still a year away. Just days into the job, Lauren and other members of the Hogsett campaign held a party inside a hotel suite as they cheered on other Democrats during the 2014 election.

Much about that night remains spotty in Lauren’s mind. She remembers feeling anxious and nervous because she was so new to the job. She wasn’t eating much at that time in her life. She also remembers Cook making sure her glass never ran dry. She became intoxicated.

By the end of the night, the hotel suite emptied except for the two of them. They each grabbed a bed, but at some point, she remembers they ended up in the same one. Lauren remembers they made out. She does not remember how much further it went or who initiated it.

She looks back and says she believes she couldn’t have given consent to any of that physical contact, no matter how far it went, under the circumstances. Indiana law requires consent but doesn’t explicitly define the term. According to the national nonprofit RAINN, people who are intoxicated cannot give consent, and people who are subordinates cannot give it freely. As her boss, Cook had the power to fire her if he wanted.

The next morning, Lauren thought her life was ruined. She remembers Cook, meanwhile, calling her later that day with work assignments as the campaign prepared to formally announce Hogsett’s candidacy the next week.

Within weeks, she says Cook told her he was in love with her as they walked to a campaign meeting downtown. She was too surprised to reply. The next morning, she says he left a letter on her desk written on yellow legal pad paper.

In the letter, Cook acknowledged something that Lauren knew to be true: that he had crossed a “line.” He also said he was being unfair to her and he was being unprofessional. He concluded with the poem “I Have Longed to Move Away” by Dylan Thomas.

She created boundaries. But, she said, Cook retaliated against her — verbally cutting her down in front of others on the campaign, preventing her from closing her office door for privacy, even keeping her out of meetings. One time, she said, he threatened to fire her for attending one anyway.

Lauren started doubting her own abilities. She wondered: Did Cook only want to hire her because he was attracted to her?

She had reached a low. Anxiety and depression creeped in. She rapidly lost weight. Lauren started having thoughts of harming herself. And she went back on antidepressant medication to manage the symptoms.

She quit the campaign in June 2015. For years, she wore the shame herself.

That is, until 2017, when she decided to take back power. She decided to tell Mayor Hogsett.

Lauren Roberts describes what led her to resign from her position with Joe Hogsett’s mayoral campaign in 2015.

The convincing of Caroline in 2018

Less than a month before Lauren Roberts’ decision, Thomas Cook sent his first text message to Caroline Ellert. It was 11:07 p.m.

That happened often. His messages touched on workplace duties, often after hours, then tiptoed into Caroline’s personal life.

The messages escalated in January 2018. After telling her that he was drunk at a bar, he messaged her: “I don’t want this to obscure the fact that 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.”

Cook seemingly acknowledged their gaps in age and office hierarchy, saying, “And I look at you and see an equal, not a baby.” He also urged her to make eye contact with him, referencing her “kaleidoscope eyes.”

“I don’t want this to obscure the fact that 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.”

Thomas Cook in a 2018 message to Caroline Ellert

Then there was the poetry. One time, he sent the poem “Guilty of Dust” by Frank Bidart, which contains the words: “Love is the distance between you and what you love; What you love is your fate.”

Cook repeatedly acknowledged he was ignoring Caroline’s boundaries. When he sent her a DVD player in the mail, he apologized and admitted to having “never been good at boundaries.”

“It won’t happen again,” he wrote in the February 2018 message.

But it happened again.

The next day, after he apologized again, Caroline told him he had crossed a line. He apologized again and said things would change.

Things did not change.

The next day, which was Valentine’s Day, Caroline was welcomed to work with a poetry book that Cook had borrowed from her. It was bookmarked to “Not Touching” by Billy Collins, which includes the line: “The valentine of desire is pasted over my heart and still we are not touching, like things in a poorly done still life.”

That day, Cook acknowledged in text messages that his actions were “wrong” and that Caroline felt “threatened.”

Three days later, Caroline told Cook that they shouldn’t be alone together. He responded: “A little Mike Pence of you, but fine” — a reference to the former vice president’s stated practice of not dining alone with women who aren’t his wife.

But after he had insisted for weeks, Caroline agreed to get a drink with him at Dorman Street Saloon.

It was Feb. 26, 2018, the night she heard The Beach Boys on the jukebox.

They held hands. He drove her home. They kissed.

Then when she went into her apartment, she vomited. In a message afterward, Cook apologized, acknowledging that he knew she was drunk.

Still, Cook went to her apartment a few days later. The night ended with another text message: “I am really, truly sorry.”

The next day, he acknowledged the wrongness again, saying he was having difficulty with the “power dynamic.” He said he was sorry.

But by March 5, they were at Dorman Street again — and she remembers that night as the first time they had sex.

He texted her later: “Are you OK?”

Her responses were short. “I’m not going to shut down,” she wrote.

In multiple messages sent across several months, Caroline continued to try to set boundaries. Over time, she learned to dread how he would react — not only over the phone, but in the office.

The day before Mayor Joe Hogsett was set to deliver his 2018 State of the City address, for example, Caroline told Cook to give her space.

Then, she said, he sent her a calendar invite using their work email addresses.

What Mayor Joe Hogsett knew in 2017-19

After moving to New York, and in the political climate that followed the election of President Donald Trump and his previously unaired comments on the “Access Hollywood” tape, Lauren started thinking about what happened to her two years earlier while working for Cook on the mayor’s campaign.

Lauren Roberts poses for a portrait July 25, 2024, at Cheesman Park in Denver, where she now resides. “I’m heartbroken and infuriated for everybody else who’s gotten hurt by Thomas,” Lauren said in an interview. “I reached out to the mayor in the first place to prevent something like that from happening to somebody else and it did.” Credit: Jenna Watson/Mirror Indy

So in May 2017, Lauren sent three emails to Mayor Joe Hogsett’s personal Gmail. She asked for a quick call, noting it was about Cook.

“His behavior during the campaign, both in the office and outside of it, were completely inappropriate and over the line,” she wrote in part. “You need to do something.”

She also forwarded the emails to several other Democratic leaders, including senior members of Hogsett’s cabinet and campaign. “My goal here is to make sure this doesn’t happen to anyone else,” she wrote in an email to a senior aide.

Lauren would try again and again to raise the alarm.

About two months later, she sent another email to the mayor: “Joe: I’m in town in a few weeks if you’d like to sit down and discuss what I’ve disclosed. I’d love to hear how you’re handling Thomas and his bad behavior going forward.”

Then in August and October, Lauren started contacting representatives of the Indiana Democratic Party to ask about sexual harassment and HR policies. One party official responded in early October with what Lauren perceived to be a closed door: “Based upon advice of counsel, please direct all further inquiries regarding this matter to our attorney.”

Lauren also sent Facebook messages to two high-level women working in the orbit of Cook and Hogsett. She said neither responded.

All of that happened prior to Caroline Ellert’s first trip to Dorman Street. If Lauren’s complaints had led to Cook’s removal, Lauren would have achieved her goal of making sure no other woman was forced to experience what she went through.

But Hogsett didn’t remove him.

In an emailed statement to Mirror Indy, the city attorney’s office said Hogsett notified his legal counsel after receiving emails from Lauren, “which ultimately led to an investigation and sanctions,” including “prohibiting Mr. Cook from having any romantic relationships with any co-workers.”

The reprimand happened in October 2017, according to a statement circulated by Hogsett’s office last month, but much remains unclear about the preceding investigation. Lauren said she wasn’t interviewed for any investigation in 2017 and no one told her about any investigation or reprimand.

Because she never heard from the mayor in 2017, she tried again in July 2018.

“Are you ever going to acknowledge or respond to my messages, or continue to ignore me for another year?” she asked in an email.

She heard back 11 days later — but not from the mayor. It was Tenley Drescher-Rhoades, an attorney who serves as the treasurer of Hogsett’s campaign. “Joe saw your email and asked me to reach out to you,” she wrote.

Lauren didn’t trust Drescher-Rhoades because she was one of the people who Lauren had tried to reach in 2017. In response to the email, Lauren insisted on talking to Hogsett instead, adding: “I’m disappointed that as a woman, you did not acknowledge my message to you last year, either.”

“Joe takes your concerns very seriously,” Drescher-Rhoades wrote back, in part. “I will, however, leave it up to you whether you would like to speak with me.”

Drescher-Rhoades’ email made no mention of any 2017 investigation or reprimand.

Lauren sent another email to Hogsett to emphasize she simply wanted to “prevent Thomas from hurting other women.” She also called Hogsett a coward.

About six months later, in January 2019, Lauren saw the mayor meeting with someone at a table in City Market. Since he hadn’t responded to her emails, she approached him.

“Thomas’ behavior was so over the line, and I’m sure that probably doesn’t surprise you to learn,” Lauren said, “And, frankly, I’m not surprised, but I am just so disappointed in how you’ve handled this.”

Hogsett, again, did not mention any 2017 investigation or reprimand.

Caroline begins to flee in 2019 and 2020

The month after Lauren Roberts’ 2019 confrontation with the mayor, Caroline Ellert was running out of options.

When she created boundaries, Thomas Cook peppered her with messages or phone calls until she relented. She had to respond if she wanted to keep her job — after all, she was responsible for work inside the mayor’s office.

That meant she also couldn’t avoid him in person. When she gained an office with a door, at times he entered and closed it behind him. He even showed up at her apartment door unannounced and uninvited.

She felt trapped.

So she fled. In February 2019, she left her position in the mayor’s office to work as executive director of the Marion County Democratic Party. What she soon realized, though, was that Cook was just as influential there — particularly because Cook was leading Mayor Joe Hogsett’s reelection effort that year.

During a political event for local Democrats, Caroline tried to avoid him. Then when he texted her to go over to him, she did as he commanded.

Failing to do so would have taken control away from Cook, something she grew to fear. One of the darkest examples she remembers is Cook appearing at her door, promising he only wanted to talk but then demanding something sexual. She said “no” more than once, but that did not stop him. She didn’t report it to the police.

The tumult underscoring their professional and personal lives would continue through Hogsett’s reelection and into early 2020.

But during that time, Caroline was gaining friends, connections and professional opportunities of her own. Newness fading, Caroline was also starting to feel less intimidated by Cook.

A fundraiser for a Democratic city-county councilor became a key moment. At the March 2020 event — held at the Dorman Street Saloon — Caroline said Cook grew enraged when he saw her talking to another man. He called her repeatedly that night, and she remembers him screaming over and over: “Fuck you.”

He later apologized over text message, acknowledging he messed up and saying he “acted like a maniac.”

As time went on, Caroline would try to maintain some level of friendship with Cook, but the timing of that fight helped establish a boundary that she had sought for years. Soon after, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic limited in-person interactions.

Cook could no longer use their professional lives to force Caroline to see him.

Cook, meanwhile, had successfully hid his interactions with Caroline from others in the workplace.

The next time, he wouldn’t be so successful.

Cook’s resignation in 2020, and Caroline’s return in 2021

In December 2020, in announcing that Thomas Cook would leave the city to pursue other professional opportunities, Mayor Joe Hogsett’s statement celebrated his right-hand man’s service to the city, noting that he negotiated more than $1 billion in public-private developments.

What the mayor didn’t say is that Cook had been under investigation for an inappropriate relationship in the workplace.

It wasn’t tied to the encounters with Caroline Ellert, which were still secret. Nor the encounters with Lauren Roberts during the first campaign.

It was a third subordinate. Much about that relationship remains unclear, but the Hogsett administration recently characterized it as consensual. The relationship was reported to the Hogsett administration in October 2020, according to the statement circulated by Hogsett last month, and Cook resigned two months later.

Because Hogsett did not fire him, Cook wouldn’t have to explain the circumstances surrounding a dismissal to future employers.

That next employer was Bose McKinney & Evans, which made Cook one of the law firm’s youngest partners in 2021. In announcing his hiring, Bose said Cook would work with clients involved in economic development deals, some of whom worked with the city.

Cook also benefited from city-county contracts that were awarded after his resignation. The Indianapolis Local Public Improvement Bond Bank, which is led by a Hogsett appointee, awarded two contracts to him while he was a partner at Bose: one in February 2022 related to the development of Old City Hall and another in April 2023 connected to the development of the Indianapolis heliport.

Caroline Ellert, meanwhile, returned to city employment as a chief communications officer in 2021 because Cook was no longer there. She managed communications about the city’s strategies for addressing gun violence, reentry, and food and housing insecurity.

Over the next 18 months, as she gained distance from what happened to her, Caroline could see it for what it really was.

But because Cook appeared to face little repercussions for his actions with Lauren Roberts during the 2015 campaign and the other subordinate in 2020 — and still maintained a tight grip on local Democratic politics because of his proximity to the mayor — Caroline made the decision to leave Indianapolis. In August 2022, she moved to Washington, D.C.

But ahead of Hogsett’s re-election campaign in 2023, Caroline started worrying, though not for herself. She asked friends and colleagues back in Indianapolis to look out for any young women around the campaign.

It wasn’t long until multiple people called her to raise the alarm about yet another woman.

Caroline intervenes to help a woman in 2023

In the workplace, the young woman learned the fastest way to reach Thomas Cook was through text messaging. But his responses eventually started coming after hours and mixed in details from his personal life. Mirror Indy typically does not name people who say they are victims without their permission.

It all felt strange. She previously considered him a mentor rooting for her professionally; eventually, she started to question his motives.

Before a work-related holiday party in 2022, for example, she said Cook invited her to drink at his home. She declined.

But during the party, Cook — who had recently separated from his wife — urged her to join an afterparty at the Dorman Street Saloon.

She was already drunk when they arrived at the bar. After she threw up in the bathroom, she began thinking more clearly. Those thoughts were anxious and panicked: What would he do if she got into a car with him again?

She immediately asked a friend to pick her up.

Although Caroline Ellert didn’t know the young woman, Caroline had heard that Cook had been spending time with her in public. Caroline sent a text to warn her on June 6, 2023: “I had a negative situation with Thomas Cook,” she wrote in part, adding that he “has routinely targeted women who work for him.”

In interviews with Mirror Indy, the young woman said she didn’t respond to Caroline’s text that day, but the warning stayed with her.

She initially declined Cook’s invitation in August 2023 to attend a weekend trip in French Lick for a Democratic function. He insisted over several text messages, and when she raised the possibility of staying at a different hotel, Cook pushed her to stay at the same one as him. She worried that he knew her room number — and she feared he would show up unannounced.

At that event, the young woman met Caroline. When they talked about their experiences, they recognized a pattern. That led Caroline to also reach out to Lauren Roberts, who by then had moved to Denver.

And by the month after the event at French Lick, Caroline realized it was time.

She needed to tell Mayor Joe Hogsett.

Caroline contacts Hogsett in 2023

Caroline Ellert didn’t want to contact Mayor Joe Hogsett during the closing weeks of his 2023 reelection campaign.

But after hearing from the young woman, Caroline believed that waiting could endanger other women.

In September 2023, Caroline outlined her experiences in a conversation with the mayor: The late-night texts, the foggy night at Dorman Street Saloon, the attempts to put up boundaries. Hogsett expressed sadness at what Caroline endured and told her that he would order an investigation.

In that conversation, Hogsett did not name them but made references to how Cook behaved with Lauren Roberts and with the woman who worked for Cook in 2020.

“I had no awareness that this was going on, and as a result, I feel somewhat ashamed that there may be other victims out there that I ought to be concerned about,” Hogsett told her.

Through the investigation, Caroline made her demands clear: She wanted Cook kicked off Hogsett’s reelection campaign, she wanted the city to terminate any contracts with him, and she wanted the city to establish a better system for reporting sexual harassment.

Ten days later, Caroline spoke with Michael Terrell, an attorney at Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP who Hogsett hired to investigate Caroline’s claims. Terrell also conducted the 2020 investigation on behalf of the city, and records show that both investigations cost around $40,000. The 2017 investigation also was conducted by Terrell, that time on behalf of the campaign.

Following the October 2023 investigation, Hogsett removed Cook from the campaign and directed the bond bank to end its two contracts with him.

As for Caroline’s third demand, it’s unclear to what extent Hogsett made any adjustments to the city’s system for reporting sexual harassment.

After removing Cook from the campaign, Hogsett won reelection. Almost everyone else, meanwhile, remained in the dark about Cook’s behavior — including any other women who might work for him one day.

That is, until Caroline, Lauren and the young woman decided to come forward together and share their stories publicly.

Cook loses his job in 2024

In addition to speaking with journalists at Mirror Indy, the three women shared their experiences as part of an IndyStar investigation that published last month.

Almost immediately, Thomas Cook lost his job at the law firm.

Cook did not respond to calls, texts and emails from Mirror Indy, but he sent a previous statement to IndyStar.

“Dating back a decade, I had consensual relationships that violated a trust placed in me,” Cook said in the statement to IndyStar. “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.”

Mayor Joe Hogsett declined multiple interview requests from Mirror Indy or to answer several specific questions. In his statement last month, Hogsett expressed gratitude to the women for coming forward and condemned Cook’s behavior. He said each complaint was “taken seriously, investigated, and resulted in sanctions” and the administration “has made continued efforts to improve the sexual harassment training and protocols available to support city employees.”

Lauren Roberts and Caroline Ellert were infuriated by his comments.

“It reads like he’s trying to look good while throwing Thomas under the bus instead of taking any responsibility for keeping Thomas in that position of power for so long,” Lauren said, “even after he heard from me in May 2017.”

Both women are just as disappointed in many city and campaign officials who worked for the mayor during that time.

“It’s very clear to me what the right thing to do is, and I think other people also know what the right thing to do is,” Caroline said, “but they just don’t do it.”

In the end, it took the courage and support of three women. Yet while they’ve found strength together, the damages caused by their experiences are still there.

Caroline often wondered about that first night at Dorman Street when “God Only Knows” started playing on the jukebox. In 2020, she sent a text message to ask Cook whether he selected the song or whether it was, as she previously thought, fated.

“Of course I did,” he wrote. “Caroline. I can’t stress how much I’ve always viewed everything I do with you as the most important thing I’ve ever done.”

Lauren, meanwhile, is the furthest removed from what happened to her. After years of therapy, she’s able to talk openly and comfortably about it.

But she still thinks back to Hogsett’s campaign in 2015, when she hired a college student named Caroline Ellert as an intern and introduced her to Thomas Cook.

The guilt lingers for Lauren — even if it isn’t hers to bear.

How we reported this story

Thomas Cook rarely appears in news articles or press releases, but for years he worked as the second most powerful man in city government. Mayor Joe Hogsett trusted him to not only lead policy decisions and essentially run the daily operations of the city but also to lead his mayoral campaigns.

Out of the public eye, though, Cook used his formal power and his proximity to the mayor in ways that would make at least three women feel trapped and victimized by his behavior. They are still working through the trauma of those experiences.

We started reporting on this matter in June. Our article is based on interviews with more than a dozen people. Some people were interviewed several times, sometimes for several hours each time. We took overnight trips to Denver and Washington, D.C., to interview Lauren Roberts and Caroline Ellert.

As part of our reporting on Caroline’s experience, we specifically interviewed six current and former city officials to learn what they saw or heard happen to her. Some spoke a little, some spoke a lot, but all six noted they learned about her experience after the fact and believed her. Many also expressed remorse that they weren’t able to protect her or other women.

We also obtained an extensive amount of corroborating materials, such as hundreds of pages of text messages and emails, as well as voicemails, voice memos, letters, images, videos, note cards, books and public records. We also reviewed the city’s policies for non-fraternization, sexual harassment and workplace hostility and spoke to two legal experts on the topics.

Many people interviewed for this article were granted some level of anonymity to protect their identity, either because they say they were victims of Thomas Cook’s behavior or because they feared professional repercussions for speaking out.

Mirror Indy does not typically name people who say they are victims of sexual misconduct. Both Caroline and Lauren agreed to use their names on the record.