A Secret Service agent and two others were arrested in Florida on charges tied to a multi-day fraternity hazing that prosecutors said left one victim with kidney failure.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office identified the agent as Marquez Christopher Pinder, 29, and the other suspects as Jared Lamar James, 26, and Elijah Delano Dyous, 29; all were booked on suspicion of attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and hazing with a deadly weapon, the office said.
Pinder was placed on administrative leave, and Special Agent in Charge Michael Townsend, who runs the agency's Miami field office, said the Secret Service is "fully cooperating with the investigation."
Pinder held the title "dean of pledges" for the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity at the University of Miami's Coral Gables campus, the arrest warrant said, and the fraternity's national president, Jimmy McMikle, said in a statement that "Kappa Alpha Psi is a non-hazing fraternity. We neither condone nor tolerate acts of hazing behavior within our organization or from our membership."
Prosecutors and the arrest warrant say the alleged hazing began inside an apartment April 1 in Sweetwater, Florida, continued April 2 and 3 at that location and carried into April 4 at a residence in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, involving prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles after alleged failures to correctly answer questions about the fraternity.
The warrant says the beatings caused one victim to require "extensive skin grafts" to a backside described as "blackened by the presence of necrotic skin/tissue," and that the victim "continues to suffer from extreme pain and discomfort" with significant effects on mobility and quality of life; investigators say a second person sought medical care for similar injuries and that those external and internal injuries mirrored the first victim's.
All three suspects were in custody Monday; it was not immediately clear if Pinder, James and Dyous had hired or been assigned attorneys to speak on their behalf. State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said, "hazing is abuse and it is a crime," and added, "Its victims too often lie in their graves and in hospital beds." The two victims were reportedly attempting to join the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity, and McMikle said the suspects are not current students and have no authority to act in fraternity affairs.