A U.S. Secret Service agent and two other men have been arrested and charged with violent felonies in the Miami area, where authorities say they committed brutal beatings as part of a fraternity hazing ritual in April that left two people hospitalized with severe injuries.One of the men charged, 29-year-old Marquez Christopher Pinder, works in the Secret Service’s Miami field office and is described in an arrest warrant as a “dean of pledges” for a Miami chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. The Secret Service said it’s cooperating with investigators and has placed Pinder on administrative leave. He was released from jail after posting a $75,000 bond Monday and faces arraignment before a judge Sept. 24.The three men were charged last week after police uncovered evidence of “alleged hazing incidents involving prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles,” the Miami-Dade County state attorney’s office said in a news release.
Police said in court documents that a University of Miami graduate student and another young man had injuries that could have been fatal had they not been treated. One required skin grafts to his backside and suffered kidney damage, the documents said, while the other had a tube placed in his windpipe to help him breathe.
