Yesterday, news outlets reported on a University of Miami grad student whose hospitalization sits at the center of a hazing case. The case has drawn national attention because one of the suspects carries a U.S. Secret Service badge.
Miami-Dade prosecutors announced the arrests of Marquez Christopher Pinder, a 29-year-old agent assigned to the Secret Service's Miami Field Office, along with Jared Lamar James, 26, and Elijah Delano Dyous, 29. All three face two counts each of attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, and hazing with a deadly weapon after two hazing victims were hospitalized with serious injuries.
Pinder was once “Dean of Pledges” for Kappa Alpha Psi at the University of Miami, which seems to be the capacity he was allegedly acting in here. It’s not immediately clear why the 29-year-old would still have such intimate involvement with the fraternity, but given that one of the victims was a grad student and the other was a Miami-Dade Fire Rescue employee, this may have involved the fraternity’s alumni chapter.
What the Warrant Describes
According to the arrest warrant, both pledges were subjected to a multi-day ritual called "getting down.” Wrong answers to questions about fraternity history reportedly triggered a stress position and repeated strikes with canes and paddles. They had been told in advance which symptoms would signal a "physical limit” (including urinating blood) and, according to the warrant, were told it was too soon for that to matter when one of them reported exactly that symptom. By the fourth day, prosecutors say the injuries had progressed to necrotic tissue requiring emergency surgery and skin grafts. Without that treatment, the warrant states, the grad student faced renal failure and death.
"I have represented hazing victims and their families for many years and I thought I had seen it all but this takes it to a new level,” said David Bianchi, an STFBC partner who helped draft the felony anti-hazing laws in Florida. “It is unimaginable that secret service agents would engage in the same illegal and dangerous behavior as drunk fraternity members. In all hazing incidents, the offenders think the rules do not apply to them and they think they will get away with it. Sometimes that arrogance catches up with them as it apparently did here."
Bianchi has spent decades litigating fraternity hazing cases, including the $14 million verdict he obtained for the family of Chad Meredith. That same case was invoked by Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle when she announced these charges, alongside the cases of Robert Champion and Andrew Coffey. Pinder and the other suspects were charged under the same anti-hazing laws STFBC partners David Bianchi and Michael Levine helped draft.
Our firm has represented hazing victims and their families in cases that reshaped how Florida prosecutes and legislates against it. We hope this case shines another light on this harmful practice and that the victims get justice for their suffering.