GREENFIELD, Ind. ― The unsolicited comments came regularly, and they made Misty Moore uncomfortable.
“Seeing you a lot today lol,” John Jessup texted in May 2022.
In another text, he said: “Just thought maybe you had missed me.”
Moore, director of Hancock County Homeland Security, usually responded in short phrases and emojis, an effort on her part to brush off the messages without explicitly ignoring ― or angering ― Jessup, who was then president of the Hancock County Board of Commissioners.
That made him Moore’s boss.
For nearly two years starting in 2022, Moore said she endured constant sexual harassment in the form of text messages and in-person remarks from Jessup. And for much of that time, Moore said county officials were aware of Jessup’s conduct ― including after she alerted the Board of Commissioners ― but failed to take immediate and adequate action.
The county is now looking into the allegations, but Moore said the investigation began only recently, after she filed a complaint against the county with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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The emotional toll on Moore hit a tipping point earlier this year, after Jessup was arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a woman in Las Vegas. Moore felt validated and relieved that Jessup, who’s currently in custody in Nevada, couldn’t harass her anymore. At the same time, the experience ― and the failure of officials to hold Jessup accountable ― left her feeling disrespected and unsupported by the county to which she has devoted much of her working life.
“I was scared. I was always afraid,” Moore told IndyStar. “I always wanted to do something about it. My husband and I talked about it that whole two-year period. But he (Jessup) had all the power … He could fire me if he wanted.”
Bill Spalding, who replaced Jessup as president of the Board of Commissioners last year, declined to comment other than to say there is an investigation.
“The allegations raised by Misty Moore have been and will continue to be investigated and addressed pursuant to Indiana law,” Spalding said.
Jessup’s attorney in the Las Vegas criminal case did not respond to a request for comment.
Moore’s allegations, first reported by The Daily Reporter, came as Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett is facing his own reckoning over his handling of claims from multiple women that they’d been sexually harassed by staffers in the Hogsett administration, including his former chief deputy mayor and right-hand man Thomas Cook.
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‘This is definitely not okay’
Moore said she started working one-on-one with Jessup during the pandemic, when she was running the county’s COVID-19 response and Jessup was president of the Board of Commissioners. In 2022, Moore recalled, Jessup approached her about taking on additional tasks and helping set up a county human resources department, which did not exist at that time.
It was an enticing opportunity. Additional tasks meant additional money. Jessup offered to provide her with training and certification in human resources through Indiana University with the end goal of making her director of a newly established department by 2023. Moore said the new job also came with a promise of a $30,000 pay raise, a significant bump for someone who would soon have two kids in college.
“I was excited about the opportunity,” Moore said. “I was excited about the opportunity to engage with the other employees and to feel like I was helping.”
But the questionable conduct began almost immediately. Moore said Jessup was often looking at her from head to toe and making comments about her appearance. She tried to be polite and cordial, even though she knew the remarks were inappropriate.
“Because I didn’t want to make him mad, and I didn’t know where the boundary is,” she said. “Yes, this feels inappropriate, but he’s also kind of trying to be my friend, but he’s my boss … I knew that anytime I would’ve ever raised a frustration with anything, he could walk in here the next day and fire me.”
At the same time, Moore dismissed her own concerns and tried to convince herself that Jessup ― who knew she’s been happily married for 23 years and often asked about her kids ― had no malicious motives and was simply being friendly.
But an incident in her office convinced her otherwise.
During a meeting in the fall of 2022, Moore said Jessup looked at her as they sat facing each other and compared her physical appearance to that of his ex-wife. He described Moore as “petite” but “strong,” she recalled, and said her “figure” was “really, really beautiful.”
“That was when I started to realize, like, this is definitely not okay,” she said.
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A few weeks later, Moore rearranged her office so that anytime she’s meeting with someone, she sits behind her desk, with the lower half of her body out of sight.
During another meeting over lunch, Moore said Jessup became intoxicated after drinking Long Island iced teas. Jessup, Moore recalled, touched her ear as he commented on her hair. In response, she put her hand up.
By the time the human resource director job officially became available at the end of 2023, Moore had lost interest.
In January of this year, Moore said Jessup stopped communicating with her. That same month, Jessup was in Las Vegas, where, according to a police report, he sexually assaulted another woman.
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The alleged assault happened in late January in a Las Vegas hotel room after a night of drinking, according to a police report from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
The woman, whose name has been redacted from the police report, told officers that Jessup invited her to go to Las Vegas with him to celebrate. The reason for the celebration, as well as how the two knew each other, appear to have been redacted from the report. The two stayed at Harrah’s Las Vegas Hotel and Casino, where they shared a room but had separate beds.
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After arriving on Jan. 25, they went to a few casinos and later, to a strip club. Throughout the night, the woman told police, Jessup kept giving her alcohol and pressuring her to drink. Jessup, at one point, also said, “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.”
While at the strip club, the woman began vomiting and became so intoxicated that she needed to be placed in a wheelchair to get back to the hotel room, according to the police report.
The woman then went to the shower, fully clothed, and “let the water run over her,” the report says. She later woke up in bed, naked, with Jessup sexually assaulting her, she told police. Jessup stopped after she woke up and moved her body away from him.
Jessup later admitted to police that he performed a sex act on the woman. But he insisted his actions were not criminal. Rather, he said, they’re the result of a “f—– up” night of drinking.
He was arrested and extradited to Nevada this past summer.
Jessup was elected Hancock County commissioner in 2017. He was on the Hancock County Council before that and is running again to rejoin the council as an at-large member. He will remain on the November ballot despite the allegations.
Janice Silvey, chair of the Hancock County Republican Party, said that after Jessup was charged, she presented him with paperwork to remove his name from the ballot, but he refused.
Unless he’s convicted of a felony before November, Silvey said, “there’s nothing the party can do to remove his name from anything.”
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Because the county did not have a human resources department, Moore had no one ― other than Jessup ― to report her concerns. But in January 2023, after Spalding replaced Jessup as president of the Board of Commissioners, she said she asked for a meeting and told Spalding everything.
But Spalding, Moore said, did not acknowledge her concerns.
“I remember feeling like he doesn’t care,” Moore said, adding that Spalding’s lackluster response made her question herself again. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe what I’m saying really isn’t that big of a deal. There were so many mental gymnastics going on, but it wasn’t okay.”
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When asked by IndyStar, Spalding did not say when he first learned of Moore’s allegations or what immediate actions, if any, he or the board took.
After the county hired a human resources director earlier this year, Moore filed an official report about Jessup but ― again ― the county did not take immediate action, she said.
Hancock County Prosecutor Brent Eaton said the county has long lacked an adequate human resources department for employees to share concerns about potentially questionable behavior by co-workers or superiors. It also did not have a system to hold bad actors accountable.
“You have a system here which is broken. Where are county employees supposed to go with their concerns?” Eaton said. “The people that are in positions of power are the ones that you’re supposed to refer some of this stuff to, but what are employees to do when they’re the problem?”
Eaton declined to comment on Moore’s allegations, but he knows Moore, whom he described as “courteous, professional and credible.”
Moore, who has hired an attorney, is set to pursue legal action against the county. It will be the second high-profile federal case brought against Hancock County in recent years alleging misconduct by employees.
Last year, Hancock County officials were accused of tolerating bad behavior by its employees after community corrections officers unwittingly recorded themselves making racist and derogatory comments about a young Black man who was under their supervision. The lawsuit was settled earlier this year.
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“Hancock County must do better,” Eaton said. “The people we represent expect us to do better. The people working in local government deserve better.”
‘I was really crumbling mentally’
Moore has been director of the Hancock County Homeland Security for 10 years. She also holds a special deputy designation from the sheriff’s department, meaning she has some police powers to detain someone or use a firearm if needed.
For much of the last decade, Moore took pride in her job. On display in her neat office in Greenfield is an American flag, along with several accolades. On another wall, just above her desk, is a framed souvenir signed by her former co-workers at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Indianapolis, where she worked as a paralegal for five years before working for Hancock County.
In 2020, she won Law Enforcement Officer of the Year.
But in the past two years, particularly after her concerns were met with deaf ears, she lost her drive. She began coming to work late, taking paid time off and working from home.
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“I was really crumbling mentally,” she said.
After Jessup’s arrest last summer, Moore said friends and co-workers to whom she had confided began checking to make sure she’s okay.
“It was in those moments that I really started to realize that this 100% is real. People know it and people see it and people know that (Jessup’s arrest) would be affecting me … because he did these things to me,” Moore said. “And so I felt a rising up inside me. Plus, I’m picturing him. He’s behind bars now. He’s not in power. He’s not in control of me.”
She added: “I think I’m going to scream a little louder about it now.”
Contact IndyStar reporter Kristine Phillips at (317) 444-3026 or at [email protected].
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Hancock commissioner jailed in Las Vegas faces new sexual harassment claim
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