Secret Service agent and two others arrested for ‘prolonged’ hazing in Miami

Three men were arrested for ‘repeated beatings with canes and paddles’ causing near-fatal injuries to two pledges

A US Secret Service agent and two others have been arrested after Florida state investigators uncovered evidence of “alleged hazing incidents involving prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles” in Miami.

Investigators arrested Marquez Christopher Pinder, 29, on Sunday. Two other men – Jared Lamar James, 26, and Elijah Delano Dyous, 29 – were also arrested for allegedly helping to orchestrate the beatings, purportedly as part of a fraternity hazing ritual in April that left two people hospitalized with severe injuries.

Court documents said that a University of Miami graduate student and another young man had injuries that could have been fatal had they not been treated. One of the victims required skin grafts to his backside and suffered kidney damage, while the other had a tube placed in his windpipe to help him breathe.

Charges against Pinder, James, and Dyous include felony counts of hazing with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with great bodily harm and attempted manslaughter.

“In Florida, hazing is abuse and it is a crime,” Katherine Fernandez Rundle, a Miami-Dade county state attorney, said in a statement. “It’s victims too often lie in their graves and in hospital beds.”

According to the Miami Herald, the accused men conducted the beatings after the victims failed to correctly answer questions relating to initiation into the Miami chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, a historically Black fraternity where Pinder served as a “dean of pledges”.

Miami prosecutors said the alleged hazing began on 1 April at an apartment in the Sweetwater district close to Florida International University. However, the graduate student victim was not affiliated with FIU.

The hazing allegedly continued for two more days at the Sweetwater location before moving to another residence for a fourth day.

The beatings stopped on the fourth night when one of the victims had blood seeping through the seat of his pants, according to a warrant in the case – and the fraternity leaders ordered the victims to strip off their clothes and place them in garbage bags.

The warrant said that injuries to one of the alleged victims “would have resulted in renal failure leading to death” while the second denied being paddled – but acknowledged receiving emergency medical care.

Medical records show he had been hospitalized with injuries to his backside and “was intubated during his stay in the hospital to prevent further physical deterioration and death”.

Pinder, James and Dyous each face multiple felony charges, including attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon or causing great bodily harm and hazing with a deadly weapon.

Rundle’s statements referred to Chad Meredith, a University of Miami baseball recruit, who died in 2001 while pledging the Kappa Sigma fraternity. He had been induced to swim across Lake Osceola in the middle of the night and drowned.

A decade later, Robert Chapman died after being pummeled by fellow members of Florida A&M University’s Marching 100 band during a ritual known as “crossing Bus C”. A third student, Andrew Coffey, died after pledging for the Florida State University chapter of Pi Kappa Phi, after being assigned to drink a bottle of bourbon.

“Among some, fraternity hazing might be seen as a tradition creating a sense of belonging and brotherhood, but since 2001, hazing in Florida has killed Chad Meredith, Robert Champion and Andrew Coffey while seriously injuring others,” Rundle said.

“This case, with the victims requiring hospitalization, provides clear-cut examples of hazing’s danger.”

Pinder, the man accused of orchestrating the latest hazing case, is a 2021 Florida International University graduate assigned to the US Secret Service’s Miami field office. He was first employed by the service in 2023, according to his LinkedIn page.

Pinder’s attorney, Justin Beckham, described that the case pending against his client was “grossly overcharged”.

A spokesman for the Secret Service agency said “any misconduct will be addressed swiftly and appropriately upon completion of the investigative and judicial process”.

The US Secret Service is best known for protecting the country’s presidents as well as other national leaders, and its other duties include investigating cases of fraud.

Days before Pinder’s arrest, in a separate and unrelated case, a Secret Service spokesperson publicly said that an agent assigned to Vice-President JD Vance’s protective detail had become “the subject of an administrative investigation, and potential criminal inquiry, involving allegations of compromising operational and information security”.

CNN, citing a source, reported that the agent came under suspicion after allegedly providing information that appeared in an MS Now report about Vance’s planned Marine Corps helicopter trip with his son to a golf lesson.

The Associated Press contributed reporting