A Secret Service agent in Florida and two others were arrested in connection to a brutal, dayslong college hazing ritual that nearly ended in a victim’s death, officials said Sunday. Marquez Christopher Pinder, 29, was placed on administrative leave and the Secret Service is “fully cooperating with the investigation,” according to a statement by Special Agent in Charge Michael Townsend, who runs the agency’s Miami field office. Pinder, Jared Lamar James, 26, and Elijah Delano Dyous, 29, have also been booked on suspicion of attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and hazing with a deadly weapon, according to the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
Pinder held the title “dean of pledges” for the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at the University of Miami in Coral Gables. Two pledges, identified only as Victim 1 and Victim 2, were “subjected to severe beatings,” according to an arrest warrant written by Sweetwater police Detective Kevin Espinosa and Miami-Dade County Sheriff’s Detective Alejandro Venturin. It wasn’t immediately clear how or why the 29-year-old Pinder would have such intimate connections to a college frat.
“An investigation revealed evidence of alleged hazing incidents involving prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles,” prosecutors said in statement. “A failure to correctly answer questions about the fraternity allegedly led to the beatings.” The alleged hazing began inside an apartment April 1 in Sweetwater, Florida, and continued into April 2 and 3 at that location, prosecutors said. The hazing kept going into April 4, at a residence in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, officials said.
The beatings caused Victim 1 to have to receive “extensive skin grafts” to his backside that had been “blackened by the presence of necrontic skin/tissue,” according to the arrest warrant. That victim “continues to suffer from extreme pain and discomfort as a results of the” alleged beatings, the warrant said, with prosecutors saying he suffered kidney failure that could have been fatal. “Additionally, ‘Victim 1’s’ mobility and quality of life have been significantly impacted,” according to the arrest warrant.
Victim 2 told investigators he was not a hazing victim but admitted to seeking medical care for injuries to his backside in April, officials said. “These external and internal injuries mirrored those suffered by ‘Victim 1’ and were consistent with the statement provided by ‘Victim 1’ that ‘Victim 2’ was subjected to severe beatings to his backside,” the arrest warrant said. All three suspects were in custody Monday.
The suspects are not current students and have no authority to act in fraternity affairs, according to the frat’s national president, Jimmy McMikle. “Kappa Alpha Psi is a non-hazing fraternity. We neither condone nor tolerate acts of hazing behavior within our organization or from our membership,” McMikle said in statement to NBC News on Monday.
“They do not have an official affiliation with any chapter nor any official role with the organization. Likewise, they do not have any authority to conduct any program or authorize any process on our behalf. We have and will continue to cooperate fully with law enforcement as they conduct their investigation to help with the administration of justice as it should unfold.” While hazing “might be seen as a tradition creating a sense of belonging and brotherhood,” State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said those acts amount to crimes with victims in “graves and in hospital beds.” It wasn’t immediately clear if Pinder, James and Dyous had hired or been assigned attorneys to speak on their behalf.
Juliette Arcodia is a producer for NBC News' Southern Region.
