ST PAUL, Minn. — An arrest warrant has been issued for Randy Cagle, the owner of a company implicated in KARE 11's year-long investigation into widespread sexual assault within the private prisoner transport industry.
KARE’s investigation exposed how Cagle’s company, Inmate Services Corporation (ISC), was operating illegally without a license in Minnesota and tied the company and five of its guards to 21 sex assault allegations in the last 10 years where there had already been a lawsuit, criminal charges or conviction.
In a dramatic turn of events at a county courthouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Judge Victor Lopez issued the bench warrant for Cagle.
The judge found Cagle in contempt of court for repeatedly ignoring orders in a civil lawsuit brought by one of his company’s victims.
Judge Lopez ordered Cagle to be arrested, held on a $3 million cash-only bond, and serve up to 364 days in jail.
Sex Assault allegations
The civil lawsuit Cagle is accused of ignoring stems from a 2019 sexual assault of a female detainee in ISC custody.
That case unmasked a serial rapist.
Federal authorities say Marquet Johnson, a former prisoner transport guard for Cagle’s company, ISC, repeatedly sexually abused female pretrial detainees.
In April 2024, Johnson was sentenced to 30 years in prison for violating the civil rights of a woman he raped at gunpoint during a 2019 prisoner transport between New Mexico and Colorado.
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Johnson, 44, of West Memphis, Arkansas, admitted in his plea deal to raping two other women during prisoner transports.
Authorities say Johnson also attacked other women.
In all, federal investigators identified 15 victims from multiple states, including Minnesota, who were subjected to various forms of sexual assault.
Johnson came under investigation in 2019 when a woman who asked to be identified by her initials, T.P., was picked up at the Santa Fe, New Mexico jail to be transported on a warrant to Delta County, Colorado.
According to court records, she was loaded into a white van that held three male detainees.
About an hour into T.P.’s transport, the van stopped in Albuquerque to drop off the three men, leaving her alone with the two guards.
A few minutes later, around 5:50 a.m., the van stopped at a gas station with an attached Carl’s Jr. restaurant.
The other guard went inside to buy breakfast and that’s when Johnson ordered T.P. into the back row of the van and climbed in after her. He removed her ankle restraints, loosened her handcuffs, leaving her belly chain in place.
T.P. told the guard that she was unsure what was going on, but that she did not want “to do this.”
In response, Johnson pulled out a short black gun, rested the gun on his lap and told T.P. that he wanted her to cooperate, “otherwise, it was going to get ugly.”
He then raped her while holding his gun against her cheek, according to records.
Afterward, he ordered her to quickly pull up her pants. She was still doing so when the other guard – John Paul Jones – came back with the breakfast burritos.
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Jones got in the driver’s seat and Johnson stayed in the back row with T.P.
In an interview with KARE 11, Jones said, “I was like, 'What the heck is going on here?' You know? I knew it wasn’t right for him to do that.”
Jones, who was new to the company, told KARE 11 he was concerned about Johnson’s inappropriate behavior being in the back close to an inmate, but he didn’t know there had been a sexual assault.
I didn’t know the gravity of how bad it actually was,” he said.
Jones testified against Johnson in the federal criminal case.
Uncovering a pattern
When dropped off at the Delta County, Colorado jail, T.P. told the booking officer about the attack and requested a rape kit.
DNA from that rape kit was matched to Johnson after federal investigators served a search warrant on him.
The FBI investigation would discover T.P. was far from being alone.
Federal agents identified 14 other women with eerily similar accounts to T.P., who revealed Johnson sexually assaulted them while they were being transported on out-of-state warrants.
Danielle Sivels of St. Paul, Minnesota, is one of those women. She was assaulted in 2019 while being transported to the Ramsey County Jail.
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“How did it happen a second time; how did it happen a third time; how did it happen all these times?” Sivels asked.
KARE’s investigation revealed five of the other victims were attacked after T.P. reported her rape.
Cagle allowed Johnson to continue transporting female detainees while the criminal investigation was underway.
Attorney Laura Shauer Ives represents T.P. in a civil lawsuit and criticized the company for enabling Johnson’s actions, stating, “The company continued to allow him to transport women and continued to harbor him and facilitate a serial rapist.”
Court filings and contradictions
In response to T.P.’s civil lawsuit, Cagle filed paperwork claiming the accusations were false, stating, “The complaint itself is built off of lies. We don’t carry firearms.”
However, former ISC guard John Paul Jones told KARE 11 that Johnson did indeed carry a gun. “I could see the gun on his right hip, and I could also see it on the dashboard when he would lay it up there.”
Other former ISC guards also disputed Cagle’s claims.
KARE 11 interviewed Christina Hall outside ISC headquarters in Arkansas. She revealed that Cagle kept guns in a safe and distributed them to the guards.
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“He had about, I would say, about eight or nine pistols,” said Hall.
KARE 11’s review of court and police files from around the country also discovered additional evidence that Cagle’s guards routinely carried firearms.
Three months before T.P. was raped, ISC guards were involved in a road rage incident in Illinois where they shot at another driver who yelled at them for driving with their high beams on.
During the investigation, ISC guard Courtney Gaines repeatedly told investigators in a videotaped interview that his boss, Randy Cagle, called and instructed his employees to dispose of any firearm involved.
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“That’s what Randy was saying: ‘If it is a firearm involved y’all need to get rid of it,’” Gaines said during the interrogation. The gun was never recovered.
Gaines and his partner were convicted. Cagle faced no charges in connection with the incident.
Current status and future implications
ISC is no longer in operation, and Cagle stopped responding to T.P.’s lawsuit in New Mexico, leading to the arrest warrant being issued.
Cagle faces two lawsuits in Minnesota from women who were sexually assaulted by his guards. He has yet to respond.
Citing KARE 11’s reporting on the prisoner transport industry, the Minnesota legislature passed a reform law to increase oversight, training standards and penalties for bad actors.
When contacted by KARE 11 for comment about the warrant for his arrest, Cagle texted that he’s not planning to go to New Mexico and won’t spend another penny or minute talking about it.
T.P.’s attorney, Shauer Ives, told KARE 11 she’s working to have the New Mexico arrest warrant localized to Tennessee where Cagle lives.
If that happens, Cagle, whose company once transported countless individuals across the country in chains, may now face his own cross-country transport.