This is part three of Mr. Clean, a series that focuses on ethical concerns within Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration. It was reported in a collaboration between Mirror Indy and IndyStar and is not available for republication in other media. For questions, see Mirror Indy’s content republishing guidelines.
Joe Hogsett once shouted from the literal rooftops that he’d end the era of insider influence in Indianapolis.
“Up here, the downtown insiders think they’re on top of the world,” Hogsett said while standing atop a downtown bank building during a 2015 mayoral campaign ad. He pledged to take on those “who cheat the system and steal your tax dollars.”
But an IndyStar/Mirror Indy investigation found Hogsett’s campaign acted behind closed doors to advance the interests of the insiders who bankrolled his mayoral bids.
On multiple occasions, for instance, Hogsett’s top campaign fundraiser arranged for wish lists of donors’ preferred city contracts to be hand-delivered to the city’s public works chief at the time, according to a person familiar with the arrangement who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation.
IndyStar and Mirror Indy reviewed records that confirmed the existence of the project wish lists.
The Hogsett administration granted three of the wishes. The deals combined were worth up to $1 million. The companies that received those deals and their executives have donated nearly $200,000 to the mayor’s campaign over the last decade.
The arrangement could run afoul of the law, one legal expert told the news outlets.
The wish lists are just one of the ways Hogsett’s well-oiled campaign machine has infiltrated the public’s business at the City-County Building, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former staffers, emails, a review of city contracting records and a first-time analysis of Hogsett’s campaign finance data.
Developers, engineering firms, architects, downtown law firms and other Indianapolis powerbrokers have donated nearly $9 million to his campaign since he started raising money in 2014. Many enjoy lucrative city contracts and favorable deals. Some wield considerable sway over city decision-making.
Officials from Hogsett’s campaign, for example, suggested donors for mayoral board appointments and strategized with public servants, raising questions about whether decisions are being made in the public interest or for political gain.
Staffers also say they were repeatedly pressured by senior administration officials to volunteer for Hogsett’s campaign in ways they now believe were unethical. One expert said city officials potentially violated Indiana’s ghost employment law and the federal Hatch Act.
The pattern runs counter to the reputation for public integrity Hogsett earned when he was U.S. attorney, which prompted one good-government group to award him the title “Mr. Clean.”
“If they (donors) have expectations, they had better understand that they are dealing with a former federal prosecutor,” Hogsett told IndyStar in 2015.
Reporters requested an interview with the mayor for this story but he declined. A written statement provided by Hogsett spokesperson Aliya Wishner on behalf of the administration questioned why “routine activities are being framed as uniquely suspect here, or whether the same scrutiny has been applied to other administrations and levels of government.”
The statement denied that the mayor is involved in the process of awarding contracts.
“The assertions imply wrongdoing without identifying conduct that differs from longstanding and widely accepted practices in public office,” the statement said, in part. “Attempting to characterize routine interactions among supporters, staff, appointees and community partners as improper ‘overlap’ incorrectly applies the law and misrepresents how municipal government functions in practice.”
However, multiple ethics experts questioned the administration’s practices.
Danielle Caputo, senior legal counsel for ethics with the Washington, D.C.-based Campaign Legal Center, said the pattern of conduct paints “the image of an administration that’s not prioritizing the public’s interest but instead prioritizing the interest of donors.”
She said some of the examples — particularly his campaign arranging to deliver wish lists to a city official — could run afoul of anti-corruption laws intended to safeguard the public’s trust.
It’s “at best questionable and at worst a violation of the law,” Caputo said.
‘Shameless’
Unlike many politicians who loathe what staffers refer to as “call time,” Hogsett is known to those close to him as a politician who gets a thrill out of fundraising and keeps close track of his donors.
In at least one case, the mayor called a city employee to his office on the top floor of the City-County Building to ask why one of his donors hadn’t received a public contract. The former employee said she was “shocked” by the mayor’s candor.
Even a seafood-boil-themed going-away party for the mayor’s former special counsel served as a fundraising opportunity.
Responding to an email invitation to the 2021 party, Hogsett asked the guests, which included city staffers and donors representing some of the city’s most powerful law firms, to show up with campaign cash, according to emails obtained by IndyStar/Mirror Indy.
“Maybe we should not forget the effort that our Hoosiers for Hogsett ‘family’ means to all of us and bring with us a check to the event that we can all celebrate handing to Emily Gurwitz,” the mayor wrote, referring to his top fundraiser. “Just sayin’.”
Ten minutes later, he followed up with another email.
“Shameless. Of course,” he wrote. “But that is how we continue to win.”
Today, Hogsett — who is weighing a run for a fourth term despite an initial promise to serve only two — is sitting on a $1.2 million campaign war chest, with many of the top donations coming from city contractors.
Hogsett is far from the only elected official whose donors are beneficiaries of government business, though unlike Indianapolis some major U.S. cities limit or ban contributions from contractors.
But Hogsett’s top donors aren’t just getting routine city contracts.
Previous stories in this series have found that Hogsett allowed Thomas Cook, his disgraced former chief of staff, to cut deals for Hogsett donors involving millions of dollars of city incentives, all while Cook was in a secret relationship with the top city official with power over those incentives. Reporters also found that Hogsett’s administration has awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to the mayor’s former staffers and top donors, including for work that in some cases produced few tangible results for taxpayers.
Related
Mr. Clean
Mirror Indy and IndyStar investigate ethical concerns within Mayor Joe Hogsett’s administration.
In response to questions for this story, Wishner, the mayor’s spokesperson, said contracts “are awarded through established administrative and legal processes involving professional staff and are never awarded based on campaign support.” Successful bidders include both donors and non-donors, she said.
“Mayor Hogsett purposefully does not have any involvement in the decision-making process regarding the awarding of contracts,” she said. “He will, from time to time, ask for more information after the fact, especially when they involve $1 million or more, to better understand why a particular firm has been chosen and the accountability measures that have been put in place to guide their work.”
Top fundraiser arranged for delivery of donor wish lists
But for at least one round of public works projects, there was an additional unadvertised step. Behind the scenes, Hogsett’s campaign mobilized to help communicate the desires of his donors amid his 2019 reelection campaign.
Gurwitz, the mayor’s longtime fundraiser who had no formal role in city government, arranged on multiple occasions for wish lists from companies to be printed out and put on then-Department of Public Works Director Dan Parker’s desk in the City-County Building, according to the person familiar with the matter.
Parker, a former Indiana Democratic Party chairman who has been a longtime Hogsett confidant, later became the mayor’s top deputy in city government in 2022. He left in 2025 and soon joined a large city contractor.
All nine firms included on the wish lists, or executives from those firms, were Hogsett donors. The source said they believed the goal of the arrangement was to make sure city officials knew about the donors’ preferences while avoiding an electronic paper trail.
Within months, the Hogsett administration granted some of the donors’ wishes.
HNTB Corporation, United Consulting Engineers, Inc., and USI Consultants, Inc., were selected for projects included on the wish lists. The contracts were each ultimately worth more than $350,000, part of millions of dollars of work the firms have landed with the city.
The companies didn’t reply to a request for comment. Parker did not respond to phone calls, text messages and emails seeking comment.
Gurwitz declined the news outlets’ requests for an interview and didn’t directly answer questions about the wish lists.
In an emailed statement she said, in part, that she “was not involved in selecting vendors (or) determining contracts.”
Wishner said the mayor’s office was not familiar with any such document, but that the firms would have been selected through “a formal, competitive process involving agency leadership and subject-matter expert review.”
“Gurwitz was not a member of the review panel for any city contract, nor would it be appropriate for her to participate in the process,” Wishner said.
Ethics and legal experts said it’s unclear if the arrangement would break federal or state law.
One expert, Caputo, said she thinks it could run afoul of the state’s bribery statute.
“It seems like the situation you described, wherein the mayor’s campaign receives a donation from a contractor, the contractor ends up on a personal list given to the person making the decision, and then the contractor receives the contract, could violate Indiana bribery statute,” said Caputo, the campaign ethics expert. “(It) feels like a pretty egregious example of violating the public’s trust.”
The three contracts were recommended by the Department of Public Works, which Parker led as director. They were then approved by a vote of the city’s Board of Public Works and signed by Parker.
Under state and federal law, it is considered bribery for a public official to grant a favor or advantage to a donor in exchange for a campaign donation or another benefit, when the advantage is tied to an official act.
Other experts said bribery cases are difficult to prosecute. They typically require evidence of a quid pro quo, wherein an exchange of money or favors for an official act is explicit.
David E. Lewis, a criminal law attorney in Indianapolis, said as a result, “it would be hard to make a bribery case like that.”
“It definitely is not a good look,” he said. “As a citizen of Marion County, I do not like that.”
Wishner did not answer several questions about the wish lists, including whether Hogsett believes the city should investigate.
‘Keep a link alive’
There were other ways campaign officials had a hand in city decision-making typically reserved for public servants.
Gurwitz, for instance, recommended donors to serve as mayoral appointees on some of the city’s most influential boards and commissions.
Gurwitz denied any involvement in board appointment decisions, though IndyStar and Mirror Indy reviewed records that confirmed she provided names of donors to the administration for potential board appointments. In at least one case, she made a recommendation within days of a donor’s contribution.
Wishner said Gurwitz did not play “an outsized role in this process.”
One former city staffer who was familiar with the board selection process and who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation said Gurwitz’s involvement seemed routine at the time, but they now look back on it as “inappropriate.”
“There was no need to have her involved,” the staffer said. “I think it was clear that she was involved in the board process to keep a link alive between campaign and official (business).”
State election law doesn’t forbid coordination between official city business and political campaigns, as long as it’s done on personal time.
A decade into the administration, several of Hogsett’s top donors serve on some of the city’s most influential boards.
That includes top leaders from Eli Lilly and Co., American Structurepoint, and law firms including Taft Stettinius & Hollister, Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath and Bose McKinney & Evans. All of those organizations or their PACs have donated tens of thousands of dollars or more to Hogsett’s campaign since he started raising money in 2014.
“Appointments to these boards are solely merit driven based on who will serve the best interests of the city and county,” Wishner said. “As such, both donors and non-donors are asked to serve as mayoral appointees.”
Campaign staff also tapped city employees to coordinate on messaging during Hogsett’s 2019 reelection campaign.
Hogsett’s campaign spokesperson at the time emailed city staffers asking about the best strategy to respond to his opponent’s agenda for Black Indianapolis residents.
“Do you guys think it makes sense to come from me,” she asked the employees, “or is it more impactful if the counter-context comes from the official side — i.e. what we did with IMPD?”
Andrea Watts, a former city employee who was included on the email chain, said the exchange was just one example of the “blurred lines” between city and campaign work.
‘I felt tricked’: Staffers say they were expected to campaign
In the summer of 2023, Hogsett was in the midst of a high-stakes reelection bid that tested his legacy.
Even though he had sworn early on he wouldn’t seek more than two terms as Indianapolis mayor, he wanted another go, saying he had unfinished business.
The only problem was his opponent: Jefferson Shreve, an ultrawealthy Republican and former city-county councilor who would go on to serve in Congress.
Shreve’s ability to self-fund his campaign made raising money more important than ever for Hogsett.
Parker, the longtime Hogsett ally who by then had been promoted to chief of staff, needed help to get his boss reelected. He decided to lean on his employees.
“I’m asking each Department or Office to schedule a night on the calendar … to make it your office’s night of phone banking,” Parker wrote in a July 2023 email. “This is simple. If each office or Dept grab a night (there are only 60 of them) then we are asking for probably no more than 3-4 nights between now and the election.”
“Thank you again for what you do during the day,” the email continued, “but I’m asking for a little bit more after hours so that we all can continue to do what we do after 11/7,” referring to Election Day.
The email, delivered as the workday began, was sent from Parker’s personal email address to the personal email addresses of city employees. But the expectation was clear: They were to campaign for their boss.
Indiana law considers “knowingly or intentionally” assigning to a subordinate “any duties not related to the operation of the governmental entity” to be ghost employment, a low-level felony.
Federal law also prohibits certain employees of local governments from using their public positions to sway the outcome of an election. That law, the Hatch Act, would bar city supervisors from asking employees to attend a fundraiser or contribute to a campaign. Whether the Hatch Act applies depends in part on whether an employee handles federal funds, according to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
Caputo said that, while the mayor would be exempt, Parker would likely be covered by the Hatch Act.
“It’s illegal for supervisors or people in a position of authority to solicit their subordinates to influence elections,” Caputo said.
She also said the Indiana ghost employment statute likely applies here.
In her statement, Hogsett’s spokesperson said employees have legal rights to volunteer for the candidates of their choice.
Wishner noted salaried employees are allowed to take breaks for personal business including volunteer duties in the middle of the work day and that flexible work hours are routinely provided.
“A personal request is not the same thing as a work obligation. There were no threats of or repercussions for any individuals who did not volunteer, nor any adverse employment action,” she said.
She also said Hogsett’s administration made it clear to city employees that they “were not allowed to engage in campaign business on city time or using city equipment.”
The push to help the campaign grew stronger in the weeks leading up to the 2023 election.
“I felt tricked into attending a volunteer meeting for what I thought was a work meeting. It crossed a professional line.”
Greg O’Neill, former city employee
On several occasions, city employees were encouraged by their supervisors to attend after-work events that were vaguely referred to as “Team Time.”
Former employees described one October 2023 meeting that took place at a nearby office building owned by a major donor.
There, Parker played Shreve’s latest campaign video to demonstrate what the mayor’s campaign was up against, a former employee recalled. Then he played it a second time.
Two staffers who attended said it was initially unclear to them whether the event was work-related.
“I felt tricked into attending a volunteer meeting for what I thought was a work meeting,” said Greg O’Neill, who worked on communications for the city between 2018 and 2024. He ended up walking out of the meeting when he realized it was about the campaign.
“It crossed a professional line,” he said.
Wishner said the “meeting in question, like all voluntary campaign meetings, was held after normal working hours and not on city property.”
“Encouraging people to volunteer as a team is a common volunteer recruitment practice across campaigns and nonprofits, and your suggestion that it creates a culture of coercion or pressure is a red herring,” the city statement said.
However, Abe Schwab, a professor at Purdue University Fort Wayne who studies ethics, said the power dynamics would make it difficult for employees to refuse.
“There’s always an implied threat when someone in a position of authority asks you to do something,” Schwab said. “When they’re using their position of authority to ask you to do things that aren’t part of your job, then the coercive power of the structure becomes problematic.”
It’s common for government workers to campaign for their bosses in their free time. But Hogsett and his senior staff made it feel like an expectation, current and former staffers said.
Watts, the former communications staffer, said employees would be “shamed” or “guilt-tripped” if they didn’t volunteer.
The money keeps flowing
The political machine Hogsett built continues to churn, even as his political future is unclear.
In 2025, Hogsett was roughly a year into a third term he’d pledged to never run for. The prospect that he’d run for a fourth seemed unlikely.
So when his campaign hosted a fundraiser in March of that year, some were taken aback, wondering why the mayor would need to keep raising money.
The evening fundraiser, at Parlor Public House, was a quarterly meeting of Hogsett’s donors that his campaign dubbed the “Committee for Indianapolis.” A “silver”-tier membership cost $2,500 per year. A “platinum” membership cost $10,000.
The meetings provided donors with exclusive access to Hogsett and, at times, city staff. One meeting, for example, was billed as an opportunity to “meet some of the new leadership at the city and get an update from the mayor.”
A day after the Parlor Public House event, the campaign recorded $45,500 in donations by representatives of American Structurepoint, DLZ Indiana, CrossRoad Engineers, and a few other firms. The companies didn’t respond to an inquiry from the news outlets.
Within months, some of those same companies inked lucrative contracts with the city.
Now, with a $1.2 million war chest at his disposal, Hogsett says he’s weighing a fourth term.
“Any mayor who has put enough time into the development of our downtown would like to see it completed,” Hogsett told reporters in late April. “So it’s one thing to shovel in a new development. It’s another thing to open the doors and welcome people in and see them enjoy it.”
About this series
When Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett first took office, he promised to prioritize government transparency and integrity. Ten years into his administration, IndyStar and Mirror Indy are partnering to examine whether he kept his promises.
This series grew out of the outlets’ separate 2024 investigations of Thomas Cook, who three women accused of sexual misconduct. A report commissioned by the City-County Council to investigate Hogsett’s handling of those allegations raised concerns that Cook may have violated ethics rules when he left city employment for a job with a law firm and represented both public agencies and private developers.
Lingering questions about the mayor’s role in the scandal led the two outlets to partner for an investigation that culminated in this series.
In previous installments, we’ve detailed how Hogsett ignored Cook’s secret relationship as public dollars flowed to developers he represented. After being forced to resign from the city over a prohibited relationship, Cook negotiated more than $80 million in city incentives for his clients while in a relationship with Scarlett Andrews, who at the time was head of the department that oversaw those incentives.
Reporters also found that Hogsett allies routinely benefited from no-bid city contracts, despite the mayor’s campaign pledge to pursue a competitive process wherever feasible. The city and public agencies over which Hogsett has influence have awarded contracts worth up to at least $6.5 million to his former staffers and top campaign contributors.
For our latest story, we spoke with more than a dozen current and former staffers and reviewed emails and city contracting records. We also talked to legal and ethics experts. And we digitized more than 10 years of Hogsett’s campaign finance data, which we’ve made available to the public.
Sources sometimes asked to remain anonymous due to fears over facing retaliation for speaking publicly. In those cases, we relied on the accounts of multiple people or reviewed documents to corroborate their allegations.
If you have more to share, you can reach us at the contact information below.
IndyStar city government reporter Jordan Smith contributed to this story.
Mirror Indy, a nonprofit newsroom, is funded through grants and donations from individuals, foundations and organizations. Sign up for our free newsletters.
Hayleigh Colombo is an investigative reporter for IndyStar. Contact her at hcolombo@indystar.com or @hayleighcolombo on X.
Emily Hopkins is a senior reporter at Mirror Indy. You can reach them by phone or Signal at 317-790-5268 or email at emily.hopkins@mirrorindy.org. Follow them on most social media @indyemapolis or on Bluesky @emilyhopkins.bsky.social.
Peter Blanchard covers local government. Reach him at 317-605-4836 or peter.blanchard@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on X @peterlblanchard.
