Inmate transport company's driver raped detainee as she was being returned to Ramsey County, lawsuit says

A lawsuit filed Monday alleges that Ramsey County and its Sheriff's Office contracted with a private prisoner transport company whose driver raped a woman — one of many he allegedly sexually assaulted while in his custody.

Marquet D. Johnson, 44, attacked Danielle Sivels, 38, while he was driving her from Texas back to Minnesota in June 2019 , according the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court.

Johnson is in federal custody and scheduled to go on trial May 15 on charges that he raped a female detainee at gunpoint in November 2019 while driving her from New Mexico to Colorado. He has not been charged in connection with Sivels' allegations, but the investigation in New Mexico has alerted prosecutors "to more than a dozen other alleged victims of Mr. Johnson's conduct" across the country while he was employed by Inmate Services in 2019 and 2020, according to a filing late last month in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque.

Sivels, of St. Paul, who gave permission through her attorney to be identified in this article, names as defendants Ramsey County and its Sheriff's Office, Johnson and Randy Cagle Jr., who owned the Arkansas-based Inmate Services Corp. until it ceased operations.

County spokeswoman Rose Lindsay said the practice of not commenting "during pending or ongoing investigations" prevented her from responding to the suit's allegations. A Sheriff's Office spokesman has yet to respond to a request for comment.

Cagle told the Star Tribune that "inmates come up with crazy stories all the time" and has otherwise declined to say anything further.

Sivels' lawsuit seeks $9 million in compensatory damages and another $4 million in punitive damages for what she contends was "cruel and unusual punishment" and other violations of her rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Her attorney, Paul Applebaum, said that Ramsey County and its Sheriff's Office are liable for what happened to Sivels while in Johnson's custody because they "can't farm out jobs like that without being responsible for the vendor's conduct."

Applebaum added that the county should have anticipated the risk of hiring this particular company but exhibited "deliberate indifference to the unconstitutional conduct of Inmate Services and its employees."

Before contracting with Inmate Services, county officials could have done a routine check of court files or an internet search and discovered numerous troubling allegations spelled out in lawsuits against Inmate Services and its owner dating back many years, Applebaum said.

According to the lawsuit:

Sivels was handcuffed in the van, with an armed Johnson driving and a second Inmate Services employee in the front passenger seat. She was being brought from Dallas back to Minnesota after violating terms of her probation as part of her sentence for causing a serious injury traffic crash in 2015.

During a stop in Oklahoma, Johnson allowed Sivels to use the bathroom. He walked her into the truck stop bathroom while she was handcuffed and forced a sex act.

While in Iowa just shy of the Minnesota border, Johnson took a handcuffed Sivels into a rest stop bathroom and forced her to have intercourse.

Applebaum said he expects federal prosecutors will bring criminal charges in the coming months against Johnson in connection with the assaults his client is alleging.

"I brought this lawsuit to make the defendants pay for what they did to me," Sivels said in a statement released through her attorney. "It is so painful to have to think about what I went through, but I also have to protect other vulnerable female prisoners from these monsters."