Indianapolis City-County Council Democrat accused of physical and sexual abuse

Indianapolis Star

3 days ago

Keith Graves, a Democratic member of the Indianapolis City-County Council that's been tasked with improving how the city handles allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, is facing and denying allegations of domestic violence.
Laurin Embry, 29, alleges that she experienced physical and sexual assault committed by Graves, 59, between 2020 and 2022, during their relationship and its aftermath.
Meanwhile, Embry's claim is not the first time Graves, who was first elected in 2019, has been accused of domestic abuse. Last spring a Marion County judicial official granted a civil protective order to another woman after she alleged domestic violence committed by Graves. That claim was eventually dismissed.
No criminal charges were filed in either case, and in a statement Graves denied the claims, saying he never "jeopardized anyone's safety, comfort, or dignity."
Embry, a social worker and Democratic campaign volunteer and vice-precinct committee member, is coming forward as Indianapolis Democrats are grappling over how they've responded to past abuse and harassment allegations that have come to light over the last year, ensnaring prominent current and former party members.
"I don't think I'll ever have peace or justice," Embry said. "I'm not asking for his resignation. I'm not even asking for the party to hold him accountable because obviously that is just too much to ask of our elected officials. All I'm doing is telling the truth about what happened to me so I can help other people."
The Indianapolis City-County Council has come under intense scrutiny as the legislative body has sought to provide oversight over Mayor Joe Hogsett's administration, including investigating how the mayor responded to claims of harassment and assault against his former chief of staff Thomas Cook. Cook last year apologized for past relationships that he said "violated a trust placed in me."
Graves has been largely silent publicly during the frequent council debate over the issues, even as three members of his own party on the council have called for Hogsett to resign.
The 2024 protective order against Graves was known about by local political insiders, but it wasn't formally discussed among council Democrats or leadership last year, Democratic City-County Council members and a person close to the caucus told IndyStar. Graves continues to serve as chairman of the council's education committee.
Graves, in a statement to IndyStar, said Embry's claims were false but did not directly answer many detailed questions sent by IndyStar about the allegations from Embry or the 2024 protective order filed by the other woman.
"I am deeply disappointed by the allegations being made against me," Graves said. "These claims do not reflect the values I hold as a father, a brother, a mentor, and a public servant. What was once a mutual and respectful relationship is now being portrayed in a drastically different and troubling way. I want to be absolutely clear: I have never acted in a way that jeopardized anyone's safety, comfort, or dignity. I unequivocally deny the false and hurtful claims that are now being shared."
When Embry and Graves met at a local political event in late 2019, she was 24 and starting to become more involved in local Democratic politics.
Graves was 53, and had just been elected to a seat on the City-County Council, while Embry had dreams of running for office one day. She said she trusted him because he was an elected official.
"He told me he was 42," she said. "Had I known the truth, I could have acted accordingly. My choice was taken away from me."
After they met and started talking, Graves said he welcomed becoming "close friends," according to 1 a.m. text messages between the two of them provided by Embry to IndyStar.
"What is a close friend to you?" Embry asked in one message.
"Trusted person that you get to see and spend time with from time to time," Graves responded. "There's more.. we can identify over time."
From there, Embry said, the relationship progressed quickly.
Graves invited her to his home a few days later. She said he pressured her to drink alcohol when she arrived.
"I had a couple sips of it," she said. "When I drank enough, he was like 'OK, we can go upstairs.' Things were moving a little fast."
She woke up in his bed the next morning despite not planning to stay over.
They were in nearly constant contact after that, she said. She believed they were in an exclusive relationship and was invested in making it work, ignoring red flags along the way, she said.
"Taking myself out of it, if I were a third person, what it would look like to me is an older elected official taking advantage of a younger person," she said. "I always thought I was smarter than average, but I was freshly 24. I was naive."
Embry alleged physical and sexual assault by Graves.
In one instance, shortly after the relationship began in 2020, she said he became angry that she hadn't responded to his text messages or calls one night when she was asleep. He grabbed her neck, applied pressure, and threatened her, she said.
"He accused me of cheating on him," she said. "He stands up and with his hand around my neck, walks me back until my back hit the wall. He told me that he better not find out that I'm seeing anyone else."
Embry said the situation eventually de-escalated once she reassured him that she was being faithful to him.
Indianapolis resident Paul Alvies, who is Embry's uncle, said Embry told him about that instance shortly after it occurred.
"She said something like, 'It won't happen again, she's not going to let no one do that to her,'" Alvies said. "I was like, 'It shouldn't happen in the first place.' I was really angry. I don't care if he's a councilor or not."
She also alleged that Graves sexually assaulted her on one occasion in summer 2022, after showing up at her home unannounced. The two were already broken up by that point.
"I got that knock on the door in the evening," Embry said. "I'm like, you know what? I'm at least going to confront him about the mental games that I knew about because they had serious consequences."
He initially made small talk with her by complimenting a nearby photo of Embry's late father and the urn that contained his remains, she said. She said he eventually tried to persuade her to "continue on with him" but she wasn't interested.
She was sitting on the couch when he leaned over her and started to kiss and touch her body, applying the weight of his body against her. She repeatedly asked him to stop, she said.
"He used his body to kind of lean over me … and to keep me from pushing him off of me," she said. "I am saying 'No. Stop. Get up.' Eventually, he does get up, but it's important for me to point out that before he did, I really did try to, with all of my might, to get him off of me."
Once he got up, she said Graves faced her and rubbed his genitals. She said she found the incident deeply disturbing and disrespectful.
"This was not the person that I thought that I loved," she said.
She said she didn't go to the police after either incident.
Graves, in his statement, said "at no point during that time (of the relationship) did she express feeling unsafe or mistreated. It is disturbing and disheartening that more than three years later, our relationship is being recast in this way."
"Abuse is a serious matter, one that I do not take lightly," Graves said. "These accusations are not only false but deeply alarming in their intent and timing."
The relationship with Graves deeply impacted Embry's mental health, leading to depression and multiple suicide attempts in recent years, she said.
"It had a major toll," she said. "What he describes as healthy and consensual had me contemplating jumping off of an overpass. I actually held a loaded gun to my head."
She says it also had a monetary cost. She's paid thousands of dollars for treatment for the resulting trauma and emotional distress, medical bills she shared with IndyStar show. She also has paid out of her own pocket for security when she's in public, Cash App payments show, because she's afraid of being approached by Graves, who she said has appeared at her workplace and home unexpectedly in the past.
Beyond the time when she alleges sexual assault occurred, she said there have been other late-night knocks on the door that she believes were from Graves because those occurrences would sometimes coincide with her receiving phone calls from him.
A longtime friend of Embry's, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid retribution, told IndyStar she heard knocks when she would stay at Embry's house overnight in 2022. Embry also provided IndyStar screenshots of text messages, repeated phone calls, an email and a Cash App payment made by Graves to her in 2022.
"I love you," he texted her on Jan. 12, 2022. She didn't reply, she said and screenshots show.
Hours later he followed up again, texting simply, "Laurin."
Between Feb. 9 and 11, 2022, he called her six times. She didn't answer.
He's also tried to interact with her in professional settings, Embry said.
On Feb. 13, 2023, for example, she said he approached her at a housing event she was hosting at the Indiana Statehouse.
"I went into fight or flight," she said. "All I could think to do is get my purse and leave. I just got the hell out of Dodge."
She once got a notification at 3:58 a.m. one morning in September of 2023 that he started following her workplace's Instagram account.
In 2024, she was asked to serve on a panel on housing stability by the Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic. She agreed, then later learned he would also be on the panel. He walked up to her before the panel started and touched her arm, she said, which made her uncomfortable.
"He hovered over me," she said. "It was consistent, despite me backing up or putting space in between us."
This isn't the first allegation of domestic abuse against Graves during his time serving on the council.
Last year, another woman filed and was granted a protective order against Graves by a Marion County Superior Court magistrate.
The civil protective order, signed in spring of 2024, states that the woman showed, by a preponderance of evidence, that "domestic or family violence has occurred sufficient to justify the issuance of this order."
It found Graves "represents a credible threat" to the safety of the woman. IndyStar is not naming the woman as it typically does not name victims of assault without their consent.
The day before the protective order, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers were called to Graves' home because of a domestic disturbance, according to a police report. The offense is listed as a "simple assault" and the woman is listed as the victim in the report. No criminal charges were ever filed.
A few days later, Graves filed a petition for a protective order against the woman, alleging she committed "repeated acts of harassment against me," including destruction of property.
That petition was denied after the magistrate found Graves hadn't shown enough evidence that violence or harassment occurred sufficient to justify the issuance of a protective order.
The woman asked a few weeks later that the protective order she was granted be dismissed, which ended the matter.
The woman declined to comment to IndyStar.
Graves, in his statement, said "while a protective order was once filed, it was voluntarily dismissed without me ever appearing in court. No criminal charges were filed. That chapter is closed, and to this day, we maintain a cordial relationship."
The 2024 filing of the protective order was reported on at the time in local political blog IndyPolitics.org, and whispered about among some local politicos, but it was never widely reported on by mainstream outlets or publicly addressed by council leaders. At the time, Graves and the woman declined to comment to the political blog.
The protective order didn't come up among council Democrats in caucus last year, multiple Democratic City-County Council members and a person close to the caucus told IndyStar, even though some people knew about the claim.
Jesse Brown, an outspoken critic of how both council leadership and Hogsett's administration have handled abuse allegations, became aware of Embry's allegation a few months ago when Embry confided in him, he said.
Brown said Embry described to him "very clearly nonconsensual and abusive" behavior. He encouraged council leadership to censure Graves and remove his committee chairmanship position.
"Why don't we have a plan on how to deal with behavior like that? There's no consistency," Brown said. "In the caucus we see that abuse is tolerated and there's never anything the powerful are forced to reckon with."
Council President Vop Osili and Vice President Ali Brown declined to comment on the matter and referred questions to Caucus leader Maggie Lewis, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Embry said it's ironic that Graves is serving on a body that the public expects to provide leadership to reform city policies to protect women. She said she was dismayed after watching other councilors fail to intervene when former Hogsett campaign staffer Lauren Roberts was dragged out of the Council chambers by sheriffs at Osili's command last month as Roberts tried to relay her concerns about experiencing abuse as a Hogsett campaign staffer.
"I see victim blaming, I see elected officials quickly trying to put this issue to bed while protecting predators," Embry said. "As a victim, I am seeing the person that perpetrated violence against me silent while all of this is happening."
Graves said he was "committed to transparency and accountability."
"I reject any attempt to equate my situation with any unrelated matters involving other past or present public officials or city employees," Graves said. "I believe in creating a harassment-free work environment and protecting the physical and mental well-being of every city-county employee. I will continue to serve the people of District 9 with integrity and purpose, as I have always done."
Embry said she is skeptical that her story will result in accountability, but she wanted to make a difference for women who want to advance in local politics by sharing her story.
"Being able to help others would be the only justice," Embry said.