City of Indianapolis fires employee amid sexual misconduct investigation – Indianapolis News | Indiana Weather | Indiana Traffic

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis City Council has fired an employee after he was found to have violated the city's workplace harassment policies.

The city provided News 8 with a document detailing the termination.

Matt Pleasant was formerly the director of the current planning department. He was fired after receiving a notice on July 22 that the city had received allegations of inappropriate sexual misconduct.

After an investigation, “overwhelming evidence was found to support the allegations,” the city administration said.

Just days after the Pleasant investigation began, someone approached Democratic Mayor Joe Hogsett with allegations of sexual harassment of another city employee, Rusty Carr.

Carr retired as director of the Department of Metropolitan Development in 2023. He then worked for the Parks Alliance of Indianapolis.

In a statement, Hogsett said he immediately reported the allegations against Carr to the city's human resources department.

The Parks Alliance told I-Team 8 that they were unaware of the allegations against Carr when they hired him. When they learned of them, they immediately accepted his resignation.

In the wake of these new allegations, Republican City and County Councilman Brian Mowery demanded that Hogsett be held accountable.

“For me, accountability means that we thoroughly investigate what is going on, how long it has been going on and why it has been allowed to go on for so long,” Mowery said.

Does he want Hogsett to resign, resign or be removed from office?

“Until a thorough investigation is conducted, I don't think this case is at all ruled out,” Mowery said.

The city government and Hogsett's administration are under increasing scrutiny and pressure after several former employees accused Hogsett's former assistant, Thomas Carl Cook, of sexual abuse.

Lauren Roberts is one of the former employees who made allegations against Cook. In a statement, she commented on the new allegations against Pleasant:

“In Indiana, a culture of worker abuse exists across all political parties and levels of government. The people with the most power, like Mayor Hogsett, let abusers get away with their bad behavior and even reward them with high-powered jobs and glowing recommendations from future employers. At the same time, survivors are repeatedly left behind.

“I am angry and deeply saddened – but not surprised – that Mayor Hogsett and other influential people are only listening to survivors after they have been subjected to intense media scrutiny. Apparently we must first make our trauma and pain public before politicians take action.

“I want to make it clear that there are many other people in power besides Mayor Hogsett – including Indiana Democratic Party officials, current Indianapolis city council members and others – who knew about my case years before the IndyStar published its first investigation last July. Some knew as early as May 2017. Most have chosen to ignore and dismiss me.

“These powerful individuals had a responsibility to protect workers and hold perpetrators to account. Instead, they not only failed to remove perpetrators like Thomas Cook from their positions of power, they also failed to prevent years of suffering, violence and trauma for survivors. We all deserve better.”

In a statement, Hogsett outlined everything his administration is doing to improve the work environment for city employees:

“We are working to create a safer and better workplace culture where our employees know how to identify and report misconduct and feel confident that their identities and information will remain confidential when they do so. That is why my administration has worked diligently to implement the short-term steps I first outlined in my budget address to City and County Council, including:

“• On August 15, Human Resources sent out this year's mandatory sexual harassment training, which I completed the next morning, and on August 19, I signed an executive order making this training mandatory annually for all City employees, not just supervisors.

“• On August 16, the City launched an internal awareness campaign to ensure all employees know how to access the free advice and support offered through our Employee Assistance Program.

“• A national law firm with no local ties is hired to review our employee handbook and make recommendations regarding it.

“• An internal, anonymous system for reporting harassment of any kind has been made available to all city and county employees, while the procurement process for an external third-party vendor to manage anonymous reports is ongoing. Demos of the available systems have begun in recent weeks.

“These are important steps in the ongoing work of this government.

“It is critically important to me that every person who serves our community as part of the city and county enterprise understands that they can report inappropriate conduct of any kind without fear of retaliation and that all investigations will be conducted confidentially.”