(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A Secret Service agent and two others have been charged for nearly paddling someone to death in a fraternity hazing ritual.
As first reported by journalist Susan Crabtree last month, the agent involved in the hazing incident, Marquez Pinder, is an alumnus of a historically black fraternity at Miami’s Florida International University. Pinder has been on leave from the Secret Service for about a month.
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle told media Sunday night that Pinder, 29, and two others, 26-year-old Jared Lamar James and 29-year-old Elijah Delano Dyous, have been charged with two counts of attempted manslaughter with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon causing great bodily harm and hazing with a deadly weapon.
“Authorities said an investigation uncovered evidence of alleged hazing incidents involving prolonged and repeated beatings with canes and paddles. They said failing to correctly answer questions about the fraternity allegedly led to the beatings,” local news site WPLG reported Sunday.
🚨🚨BREAKING: Secret Service Agent Marquez Pinder was arrested and charged today with five felonies in a near-fatal fraternity hazing incident that took place in April, according to court documents.
In June, I exclusively reported that a Secret Service agent was put on… https://t.co/Ee6rahbcfe pic.twitter.com/iId16rTrWk
— Susan Crabtree (@susancrabtree) July 27, 2026
“According to investigators, the alleged hazing began April 1, 2026, at an apartment in Sweetwater and continued through April 2 and April 3 at the same location. On April 4, authorities said the alleged hazing continued at a residence in unincorporated Miami-Dade County.”
Justin Beckham, a defense attorney for Pinder, told the New York Times that his client has been “grossly overcharged.”
“He has served his country honorably, first in the military and then the Secret Service,” Beckham reportedly said. “We look forward to fighting these charges.”
The charges against Pinder come on the heels of news of another agent being put on leave for leaking info about Vice President JD Vance’s travel schedule.
On top of that, another Secret Service guard on Vance’s detail was recently arrested for a drug deal with an undercover cop. Crabtree reported the arrest last month, saying that she’s withholding the agent’s name “until more details emerge about the alleged drug-related arrest.”
A mother earlier, a Secret Service officer was reportedly in May arrested for public masturbation at a DoubleTree hotel near the Miami airport. And in April, a married Secret Service agent was revealed to have been having an affair with an OnlyFans star and making pornographic videos with her. Around the same time, ABC News revealed that a Secret Service trainee was arrested for spying on his roommate, also an agent-in-training, with a hidden camera.
Before that, a Secret Service agent protecting former First Lady Jill Biden shot himself in the buttocks last month at the Philadelphia International Airport.
And earlier in the month, Crabtree reported that agent Myosoty Perez, who is a lesbian, has been suspended and is under investigation for marrying a foreign national—possibly an illegal immigrant—without declaring it. Perez was one of the agents responsible for nearly getting President Donald Trump killed at his July 13, 2024, campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
Additionally, in January a Secret Service recruit shot and killed a 16-year-old in Tamarac, Florida. The 16-year-old victim was identified as Orlando Wedderburn. A woman was also grazed. The Secret Service recruit, for his part, is claiming self-defense.
According to Crabtree, Secret Service Director Sean Curran is receiving internal criticism for not doing enough to eliminate the agency’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies, which were implemented starting in the Obama era.
Meanwhile, the agency is looking to hire 4,000 new employees by 2028.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
