Transport driver raped inmate en route to Ramsey County jail, lawsuit says

Nick Ferraro, Pioneer Press
Updated ·3 min read

A former Ramsey County jail inmate has filed a lawsuit alleging she was sexually assaulted by the driver of a private transport company contracted by the county and the sheriff’s office.

Marquet Johnson, 44, assaulted the woman twice during a two-day trip from the Dallas County jail in Texas to the Ramsey County jail in June 2019, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court.

The lawsuit names as defendants Ramsey County, the sheriff’s office and five unnamed sheriff office supervisors. Also named are Johnson and the owner of Inmate Services Corp., his former Arkansas employer that has since shut down operations following a number of other similar lawsuits and allegations across the U.S.

Johnson is in federal custody and awaiting trial after a February indictment accused him of raping a woman at gunpoint during a transport from New Mexico to Colorado on Nov. 4, 2019, while he was employed by Inmate Services. “The investigation of those allegations has given rise to more than a dozen other alleged victims of Mr. Johnson’s conduct while he was employed by ISC in 2019 and 2020,” the indictment states.

In this week’s lawsuit, the woman, who is represented by attorney Paul Applebaum, alleges that Ramsey County and the sheriff’s office “knew of, or should have known” about prior instances of misconduct by Johnson and other drivers, including sexual assaults.

It states that the woman’s “injury and trauma were a direct product” of Johnson’s rape and the “deliberate indifference” of Ramsey County and the sheriff’s office “to their non-delegable duty to properly screen” private vendors.

“In fact, a 10-second Google search before hiring Defendant Inmate Services Corp., would have given clear notice to Defendants Ramsey County and the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office that Defendant Inmate Services Corp. had been the target of numerous lawsuits across the country, and was the scorn of law enforcement,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit mentions another driver for Inmate Services Corp., Rogeric Hankins, who last year pleaded guilty in federal court to sexually assaulting a female prisoner on a trip from Olympia, Wash., to the Ramsey County jail on April 3, 2020. He is awaiting sentencing.

The lawsuit seeks from Ramsey County and the sheriff’s office an amount to be determined at trial for alleged violations of the woman’s constitutional rights, and also asks for permanent injunctive relief mandating changes in the county’s policies and procedures.

On Friday, Ramsey County spokeswoman Rose Lindsay said the county does not comment during pending or ongoing lawsuits or investigations.

According to the lawsuit, the woman had been detained in Texas on a Ramsey County warrant issued after she violated probation relating to a 2015 hit-and-run crash that seriously injured the other driver.

At the start of the extradition trip back to St. Paul, she was handcuffed and placed in the transport van driven by Johnson. A second Inmate Services employee was a front-seat passenger.

Johnson allowed her to use the bathroom at a truck stop in Oklahoma. He kept her handcuffed and followed her into a stall, where he forced her to give him oral sex, the lawsuit alleges.

As the transport van neared the Iowa-Minnesota border, Johnson again pulled off the highway at a rest stop. There, he took her to a bathroom in handcuffs and allegedly forced her to have intercourse.

Once she arrived in Minnesota, she pleaded guilty to the probation violation and was sent to prison on a previously stayed 23-month prison term, court records show.

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