Former prison transport officer accused in multiple sexual assaults gets 30 years in prison

A former prison transport officer accused of sexually assaulting at least 15 female detainees en route to jails in New Mexico and elsewhere was sentenced to 30 years in federal prison on Tuesday.

Specifically, Marquet Johnson, 45, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque after pleading guilty in December 2023 to violating the civil rights of multiple pretrial detainees during prison transports dating back to at least 2019.

Johnson had worked for a private firm, Inmate Services Corp., based in Arkansas, picking up people arrested on out-of-state warrants and transporting them back to the jurisdictions that had issued the warrants.

He was indicted in January 2023 in New Mexico on charges related to using his official position to sexually assault at gunpoint a female detainee at a truck stop. The woman — identified as T.P. — was being transported from Santa Fe to Delta County, Colorado, and was in restraints. She later refused his orders to clean herself up and thereby secured DNA from his semen, which led to the charges in the criminal case.

The woman immediately disclosed the sexual assault and asked for a rape kit once she was dropped off at the Colorado jail in November 2019. Investigators who collected her clothing found a note from Johnson in her pants pocket and verified that the phone number on it was Johnson’s.

An FBI investigation discovered other sexual assaults of female detainees as Johnson traversed the country while on duty.

“There are no words to aptly convey the depravity of the Defendant’s conduct and the severe trauma that it caused each of the fifteen victims the United States is aware of. Nor is there an adequate sentence that will truly restore any of these women’s sense of safety, dignity, and bodily autonomy, which the Defendant took from them when he sexually assaulted them,” stated a sentencing memorandum filed by an assistant attorney general in the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., which helped prosecute the case.

Johnson repeatedly sexually abused female detainees trusted to his care, stated the memorandum. “He proactively sought and created opportunities to be alone with the women he transported; he used threats, physical force and violence, and, at least one on occasion, a firearm to coerce the women into nonconsensual sexual conduct; he gave the women his phone number or attempted to contact them once they were out of his custody’ and he later lied to investigators about his crimes,” stated the sentencing memorandum.

In his plea agreement, Johnson agreed he held a dangerous weapon, a firearm, against T.P.’s cheek during the sexual assault. His transport partner at the time was inside a gas station to buy breakfast. T.P. was still trying to put on her pants when that officer returned with breakfast burritos.

“Such a sentence will also signal to other prisoner transport officers, and others in law enforcement, that sexual abuse of persons in custody will not be tolerated and will result in a significant period of imprisonment,” stated the memorandum, which asked for the maximum punishment of 30 years in prison.

U.S. Attorney for New Mexico Alexander M.M. Uballez, whose office helped in the prosecution, said law enforcement officers are charged not only with protecting the public from harm but also with protecting the rights of suspects.

“If you abuse your position of authority to sexually assault those entrusted to your care, your badge will not shield you from justice,” he stated.