{"id":218558,"date":"2026-07-28T10:36:06","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/secret-service-agent-charged-in-near-fatal-hazing-with-canes-and-paddles-that-led-to-victims-kidney-failure-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T10:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T10:36:06","slug":"secret-service-agent-charged-in-near-fatal-hazing-with-canes-and-paddles-that-led-to-victims-kidney-failure-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/secret-service-agent-charged-in-near-fatal-hazing-with-canes-and-paddles-that-led-to-victims-kidney-failure-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret Service agent charged in near-fatal hazing with canes and paddles that led to victim\u2019s kidney failure – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A Secret Service agent in Florida and two other people were arrested in connection with a brutal, dayslong college hazing ritual that nearly ended in a victim\u2019s death, officials said Sunday.
Marquez Christopher Pinder, 29, was placed on administrative leave, and the Secret Service is \u201cfully cooperating with the investigation,\u201d according to a statement by Special Agent in Charge Michael Townsend, who runs the agency\u2019s 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\u2019s Office.
Two pledges, identified only as Victim 1 and Victim 2, were \u201csubjected to severe beatings,\u201d according to an arrest warrant written by Sweetwater police Detective Kevin Espinosa and Miami-Dade County Sheriff\u2019s Detective Alejandro Venturin.
Victim 1 was identified as a former undergraduate student at the University of Miami in Coral Gables who was seeking membership at Kappa Alpha Psi, according to the arrest warrant. Victim 1 is now a grad student at the University of Miami, officials said.
Victim 2 was called \u201canother prospective pledge\u201d in the warrant.
While Pinder was called \u201cdean of pledges\u201d in the arrest warrant, the university said he has no connection to the Coral Gables campus or that chapter of the fraternity.
\u201cThe agent, Marquez Christopher Pinder is in no way affiliated with the University of Miami or the University\u2019s undergraduate chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi,\u201d according to a university statement.
It wasn\u2019t immediately clear how or why the 29-year-old Pinder would have such intimate connections to a college fraternity.
\u201cAn investigation revealed evidence of alleged hazing incidents involving prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles,\u201d prosecutors said in a statement. \u201cA failure to correctly answer questions about the fraternity allegedly led to the beatings.\u201d
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 \u201cextensive skin grafts\u201d to his backside that had been \u201cblackened by the presence of necrotic skin\/tissue,\u201d according to the arrest warrant.
That victim \u201ccontinues to suffer from extreme pain and discomfort as a result of the\u201d alleged beatings, the warrant said, with prosecutors saying he suffered kidney failure that could have been fatal.
\u201cAdditionally, \u2018Victim 1\u2019s\u2019 mobility and quality of life have been significantly impacted,\u201d 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.
\u201cThese external and internal injuries mirrored those suffered by \u2018Victim 1\u2019 and were consistent with the statement provided by \u2018Victim 1\u2019 that \u2018Victim 2\u2019 was subjected to severe beatings to his backside,\u201d the arrest warrant said.
The suspects are not current students and have no authority to act in fraternity affairs, according to the fraternity\u2019s national president, Jimmy McMikle.<\/a>
\u201cKappa Alpha Psi is a non-hazing fraternity. We neither condone nor tolerate acts of hazing behavior within our organization or from our membership,\u201d McMikle told NBC News in a statement Monday. <\/strong>
\u201cThey 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.\u201d
While hazing \u201cmight be seen as a tradition creating a sense of belonging and brotherhood,\u201d State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle said those acts amount to crimes with victims in \u201cgraves and in hospital beds.\u201d
It wasn\u2019t immediately clear whether Pinder, James and Dyous have attorneys to speak on their behalf.
Pinder was released on bail but ordered into house arrest.
Senior Breaking News Reporter
Juliette Arcodia is a producer for NBC News’ Southern Region.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeA Secret Service agent in Florida and two other people were arrested in connection with a brutal, dayslong college hazing ritual that nearly ended in a victim\u2019s death, officials said Sunday.Marquez Christopher Pinder, 29, was placed on administrative leave, and the Secret Service is \u201cfully cooperating with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":218559,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}