HANCOCK COUNTY — A female county department head has filed a harassment and sexual discrimination claim against the county relating to Commissioner John Jessup.
Misty Moore claims Jessup, who was president of the board of commissioners at the time, harassed her with text messages, comments and inappropriate touching for nearly two years.
In an unrelated case, Jessup was arrested in June of 2024 by officials in Las Vegas surrounding a sexual assault charge there that is alleged to have occurred in January 2024. Jessup is currently in Las Vegas under house arrest awaiting a February trial.
Moore’s sexual discrimination claim comes after she says she was harassed and informed county officials, who did nothing to stop it.
Moore was hired by the county in October of 2014 to be the Director of Emergency Management, now known as Hancock County Homeland Security. Moore, who was named the county’s top law enforcement officer in 2020, has a primary role of ensuring the safety of the people and property of Hancock County.
Unfortunately, Moore says she has found no such security for herself in her own county after she was harassed by her boss, Jessup, and then ignored by other county officials when she shared her trouble. After speaking with county commissioner president Bill Spalding about the harassment in 2023 and filing a claim with the county’s human resource department earlier this year, to no avail, Moore says she had “no other choice” but to take her case to state officials.
Moore is a mother of two and married to a longtime county educator and coach. She filed an official harassment and sexual discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in early September. The EEOC is a federal agency that enforces laws to prevent discrimination and harassment in the workplace. Moore has also hired an attorney and told the Daily Reporter that a federal lawsuit will be filed in the coming days.
According to the EEOC claim, Moore was harassed by former board of commissioners president Jessup as far back as May of 2022, with the latest documented incident happening in November 2023. Moore states in the claim that, in or around May 2022, Jessup began sending her inappropriate text messages and making unwanted sexual comments toward her.
Among numerous text messages obtained by the Daily Reporter from Jessup to Moore, one read, “I need a hug. Or hard liquor. Or both lol.” While another stated, “Hey you. How the heck’s your pretty face!?!” Others said things like, “I need a hug or a drink or something lol, I want to throat punch our auditor Lol.” While still another stated, “You looked very nice Friday evening you must of had 10” heels on.”
One of the texts happened during a commissioners meeting while Jessup was running the meeting and Moore was in attendance and read, “So, I decided just to pester you all morning lol. I suppose I can leave you alone, nope… I was wrong I can’t. Just thought maybe you had missed me.” Another said, “Busted, Sometimes you are more interesting than my meetings.”
As the head of Hancock County Homeland Security, in 2022 Moore reported directly to Jessup, who was the board of commissioners president until Jan. 2023 when Spalding took over leadership. It was at that time, January 2023, that Moore said she went to Spalding and informed him that Jessup was harassing her, but she says nothing ever came of it.
“I told him (Spalding) I was feeling very uncomfortable with my interactions with John Jessup and also that Jessup was getting intoxicated at working lunches, and I was concerned about all of it,” Moore said. “But, nothing ever came of my complaint.”
In addition, Moore said she also spoke about the issue with several county co-workers and county officials, including the human resource director that the county hired in 2024, Kelly Ellert.
“I made comments to people I guess thinking, hoping someone would say something to him (Jessup) and maybe he’d cut it out because I didn’t know what else to do,” Moore said.
Moore noted she had been working closely with Jessup in 2022-23 due to the fact that he approached her about taking classes so she could become the county’s human resource director. Jessup, Moore said, offered her more responsibility and a pay increase of $30,000 if she’d go for the job.
“When he first approached me and offered me what I thought was a great work opportunity, and I don’t think I realized what he was really up to, so at the time that job opportunity was important to me,” Moore said.
Moore said it was almost immediately after Jessup offered her the new position that he started acting inappropriately toward her.
“The first thing that stands out in my mind that made me stop and wonder what is going on here was when I was at a commissioners meeting in the audience and he texted me from his position, his seat during the meeting and said, ‘It’s nice to see you today, there’s that smile,’” Moore said, “It felt awkward, and it felt particularly professionally awkward because he’s running the meeting and he’s my boss.”
Moore believes Jessup was trying to groom her, make it feel like he was her friend, offering her what he said was a higher-paying job with more responsibility. However, Moore said Jessup would then slide in inappropriate comments about her body and face, even touching and hugging her, which made her feel uncomfortable.
“He’d then cross over and say things like, ‘We should have drinks some time,’ and he’d hug me and say things like ‘Thank you for the hug,’” Moore said. “I felt that he crossed the line and this wasn’t just a friendly working relationship anymore.”
The first time Jessup hugged Moore, she said it made her feel “odd” having her boss want to touch her. “I would flinch and try to pull away,” Moore said. Moore noted she was conflicted and let him hug her and responded to his texts only because he was the boss and she didn’t know what to do.
“I look back on that now and I felt so powerless,” Moore said. “If I told him to stop, I was honestly afraid he would come in the next day and fire me because he could. Plus, I was afraid no one would believe me. He had all the power.”
Moore said that after over a year of enduring harassing texts and comments in person, she lost all desire to pursue the human resource director’s job and backed away from the position and started ignoring Jessup.
“During that time, I started making comments to co-workers and telling people that he (Jessup) makes me feel uncomfortable,” Moore said.
Then in January 2023 when Spalding became the president of the commissioners, Moore decided it was time to talk with him and tell him about Jessup’s harassment.
According to Moore, Spalding listened to her and then told her, “I know there is an alcohol problem, and I think we don’t know how to address it with him being an elected official. It’s tricky.”
Moore said Spalding offered no apology, didn’t offer any advice and did not state anything surrounding her concerns of the sexual harassment.
“There was no, ‘I’m sorry, I will talk to him, what can we do for you,’ and at the same time he (Spalding) was my last-ditch effort who I thought could tell Jessup to ‘Cut it out,’” Moore said. “That’s all I wanted. I just wanted it to stop. I did not want it to arrive at where we are today.”
The Daily Reporter reached out to Spalding who while acknowledging the issue said he could not comment at the time.
County officials then released the following statement:
“It is the policy of Hancock County not to comment on pending litigation prior to conclusion unless otherwise required by law. The allegations raised by Misty Moore have been and will continue to be investigated and addressed pursuant to Indiana law. We have no further comment at this time.”
Moore said Jessup continued to harass her until around January 2024 when the harassment suddenly stopped. That is the month when the sexual assault allegedly occurred in Las Vegas. Jessup was arrested six months later.
“I’ve not heard from Jessup since Jan. 2 of this year, and I was happy until I heard of his arrest,” Moore said.
Moore said it was only after Jessup’s arrest this June that Spalding brought up Jessup’s name to her.
“Spalding came to my office at the end of June, a year and a half later after I had talked with him right after Jessup was arrested,” Moore said. “He said to me, ‘I know you had situations with Jessup, and I hope that you have a way to share that.’ I honestly had no idea what that meant and I kept waiting for him to tell me, but he never did and he also told me that he knew there were other people who had been harassed by Jessup, too. He said one of the women was a vendor of ours, so he specifically knew.”
When the county hired a human resource director, Ellert, in March, Moore went to Ellert and talked to her about Jessup, but no official report was filed until after Jessup was arrested. That’s when Moore said that went back and talked to Ellert again to make sure an official report was taken. As of early September, Moore had not been advised of any type of investigation being conducted by the county. When she went to get paperwork on the official complaint, Ellert told her that none had been filed. That prompted Moore to file a complaint with state officials.
Moore said she did feel validated following Jessup’s arrest, due to the fact several county coworkers reached out to her to check on her and make sure she was OK. One co-worker texted Moore and said, “Are you doing OK this week? I’ve thought of you a several times. It’s so sickening and awful,” While another co-worker texted, “I’m putting together support resources to help employees process this situation with John. I’m hoping that word of mouth will open the doors for people to start telling their stories.”
Moore says she has talked with enough co-workers that she feels certain there could be other victims.
“They knew what I had been through and, at that time, I really realized what he did to me was so wrong and other people saw it and now he’s not here and he’s not in power and he had traumatized me,” Moore said. “I realized maybe now I can speak.”
