St. Paul, Minn. — A woman accused the state Corrections Department of negligence when she was being transported between jails and assaulted sexually by the driver. In a new civil lawsuit the woman argues that a single male officer never should have been allowed to transport a female inmate alone. The incident occurred at a Cannon Falls McDonald’s drive-through in 2019. The woman was being driven from Rochester to Minneapolis. The case already has been in the criminal courts. A former corrections officer, Randy A. Beehler, 53, of Foley, pleaded guilty in March to having coerced the woman into sexual favors in exchange for lunch. The allegation in the criminal case was that the woman had said at the drive-through that she was hungry and Beehler invited her to come to the front seat to “fool around.”
Beehler. A Corrections Department sergeant. From Foley northeast of St. Cloud.