The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office has dropped criminal charges against Maxi Paulus Ratunuman, a 44-year-old man arrested a month ago in an incident he says was instigated by former Roman Catholic priest Alberto Cutié and his bride, Ruhama Buni Canellis.

But Ratunuman, a native of Indonesia, still faces deportation proceedings. Ratunuman has been kept on an immigration hold at the Metro West Detention Center since June 6, when Biscayne Park police arrested him on charges of trespassing and having an expired driver’s license.

On Thursday, state attorney’s spokesman Ed Griffith said those charges ”do not stand.” Ratunuman did not trespass and had a valid driver’s license, Griffith said. Deportation proceedings will begin once he is transferred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, said ICE spokeswoman Nicole Navas.

In a lawsuit filed June 12, Ratunuman said police officers arrested him while he was installing floor tiles at customer’s house in Biscayne Park. The alleged reason: Ratunuman, who said he lived with Canellis in the Biscayne Park area for three years, had information ”that would bode badly” for Cutié and Canellis.

Cutié has denied any wrongdoing. ”This recent development does not in any way change the fact that the complaint against Father Albert and Ruhama Canellis is bogus and will soon be dismissed,” said Cutié attorney Robert J. Fiore.

In an hourlong, private ceremony, Cutié, 40, said “I do” to the woman he has dated for two years, 35-year-old Ruhama Buni Canellis, at the historic St. Bernard de Clairvaux Episcopal Church in North Miami Beach.

The Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, officiated at the wedding which featured a traditional Episcopal Mass and homily.

A handful of private guards and several North Miami Beach police cruisers were on watch at the church gate as about 50 guests, including Episcopal church priests, the couple’s families and friends, were ushered in.

Clad in a white dress, Canellis arrived at 7 p.m. in a black stretch limo with tinted windows. Bridesmaids in dark red dresses sat by her side.
Dozens of reporters from local and international media staked out the church grounds in addition to many local residents aching to see the famous couple.

“I don’t like the way Alberto has handled himself,” said Maria Rivas, 62, of North Miami Beach, who had heard reports about the wedding and rushed to the church to try to get in.

‘LET THEM BE HAPPY’

“It’s a free world,” remarked Victor Gutierrez, 49, of North Miami Beach. “Let them have fun and be happy.”

Cutié legally married Canellis before a Miami-Dade County judge in a private ceremony at the Coral Gables courthouse on June 16. The couple had joined the Episcopal church in late May, and Cutié announced he had begun the process required to become an Episcopal priest.

LEFT CATHOLIC POST

Cutié left his post at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Miami Beach on May 5 after a Spanish-language celebrity magazine published photos of him entwined with Canellis on a Florida beach, a violation of his vow of celibacy as a Catholic priest.

With its lush greenery and Gothic architecture, St. Bernard de Clairvaux, commonly referred to locally as the Spanish Monastery, is one of the most popular spots in South Florida for weddings and photo shoots.

The oldest European structure in the Western Hemisphere, it was built in Segovia, Spain, in the 12th century and purchased by newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst in the early 20th century. Disassembled and shipped to this country, it was rebuilt at 16711 W. Dixie Hwy. in 1954.

In a lawsuit filed in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, Maxi Paulus Ratunuman, 44, says Biscayne Park police arrested him without cause on June 6 while he was installing floor tiles in a customer’s house on Griffing Boulevard in Biscayne Park. The reason: Ratunuman, who the lawsuit says lived with Canellis in the Biscayne Park area for three years and helped raise her teenage son, had information “that would bode badly” for her and Cutié, who wanted to get him out of the picture.

County records show that Biscayne Park police Officer Antonio Sanchez, named in the suit along with Officer Raimundo Atesiano, arrested Ratunuman on trespassing charges.

Ratunuman, a native of Indonesia, is being held at the Metro West Detention Center on an immigration hold. He also faces charges of driving with an expired license. He goes to trial July 15.

Ratunuman and Canellis “planned to be married and have children,” according to the lawsuit. Ratunuman paid the house’s mortgage because Canellis “could not afford the residence on her own,” but she then “began cheating with” Cutié.

The lawsuit does not say when that happened, but Cutié has said he and Canellis became romantically involved two years ago. The lawsuit also does not say what damaging information Ratunuman has on the couple. Ratunuman asks for $15,000 in the lawsuit for “mental anguish, loss of income and earning capacity” and for the costs of mortgage payments and home remodeling that Canellis allegedly promised to pay back.

Records also show Canellis bought a two-bedroom house at 10951 NE Third Ave., near Biscayne Park, in 2003 and sold it in 2007 for $180,000.

Sanchez declined to comment Tuesday, and a phone call made to Ratunuman’s attorneys at Fort Lauderdale law office Goldman and Hellman was not returned.

The phone at the Miami Beach apartment currently listed as Canellis’ residence was also not answered Tuesday.

– Jaweed Kaleem

The couple was legally married by a judge, but sources say they still will have religious ceremony within the next week in an unnamed Episcopal church. The Rt. Rev. Leo Frade, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southeast Florida, will officiate that wedding.

Not on the church list: Miami’s Trinity Cathedral, the diocese’s flagship church and one that dozens of international reporters flooded after the former Roman Catholic priest and Canellis switched Christian denominations on May 28.

Cutié gave his first sermon as an Episcopalian on May 31 at Church of the Resurrection in Biscayne Park and has started a yearlong process to become an Episcopal priest. In the meantime, he will continue to give sermons and rehabilitate ailing Episcopal churches, including Church of the Holy Comforter in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood.

Cutié left his position at St. Francis de Sales Catholic church in Miami Beach when photographs showing him nuzzling Canellis on a Florida beach — a violation of his vow of celibacy — were published in a celebrity magazine in early May.

BY JAWEED KALEEM

Father Alberto Cutié

“I knew that during some time I was being followed,” Cutié said. ‘I think that being Cuban American, we have that paranoia that perhaps it could be someone from another government, from another place … I had experiences at Radio Paz of seeing strange cars when I would leave work late or arrive early. I would see things and I would say, ‘I wonder who would be following me?””

But that didn’t stop him from his moment of fun in the sun with his girlfriend of more than two years, whom Cutié still has not named directly but who has been identified in media reports as Ruhama Buni Canellis, 35, a divorced mother living in South Beach.

Cutié said it was his companion on the sand who first noticed they were being taped. “I look and I see the camera,” Cutié said. ‘My first reaction was, `What can I do? It’s already happened.’ My first reaction was to stay calm.”

CAUGHT ON CAMERA

He says the videographer, a heavyset woman who was trying to hide the camera, left the minute she realized Cutié spotted her. He says he has no idea who she is and that he learned of the spread in TVNotas the day the Mexican magazine hit the streets.

Univisión’s Teresa Rodriguez asked if the woman with the camera tried to contact him to sell him the photos.

“Nobody talked to me about it,” he said.

Cutié said he was attracted to his love almost from the moment they met about 10 years ago in church. He said she wrote him a letter three or four years later saying that she wanted to be his friend and that she promised that was all she wanted to be.

She suggested they go out for coffee. He turned her down that time, but later agreed to meet.

“I was dressed like a civilian,” he told Rodriguez. ‘I told her I would meet her at the rectory, and I put on my black suit and collar so that it would be clear, so that she knew, `There is not going to be anything here.’ I just knew there was this strong connection.”

He said he doesn’t remember the details of that conversation but that they spoke about God and the Bible.

What attracted him?

PASSION FOR JESUS

“She is a good woman, a simple woman, a humble woman,” Cutié said.

“But what attracts me most, besides that I think she is physically beautiful, is her faith … I think she has the same passion that I have for Jesus.”

“Is she the love of your life?,” Rodriguez later asked.

“If not, I would not be in this situation,” Cutié said.

At the end of the program Rodriguez reported she had a subsequent conversation with Cutié in which he “categorically denied” rumors that Canellis, who reportedly has a 14-year-old son, also has a younger child that could be his.

The Archdiocese of Miami made no indication Wednesday of what would happen to Cutié, who was removed from his Miami Beach church after the compromising photos of him with his girlfriend surfaced last week.

“The Catholic Church is a loving, patient and caring church and it asks for everyone’s prayers for Father Alberto Cutié as he continues his prayerful journey,” said spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta.

While Archbishop John C. Favalora has largely remained quiet on the Cutié saga, speaking through two short prepared statements, the celebrity priest was the topic of discussion over the weekend by Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne, the Archbishop of Lima, according to the Catholic News Agency.

`A GIFT FROM GOD’

“Chastity is a gift, and not a repression as some are saying, much less a mockery or a sarcastic comment. No, chastity is a gift from God! We must ask ourselves: How are you receiving the gifts of God? How are you caring for them?” Cipriani said regarding Cutié.

“On a personal level he should be completely forgiven, but on the public level in which this situation has occurred, we must clarify in order to teach the faithful what God wants.”

A popular Miami priest and media personality said Monday he is thinking about leaving the Roman Catholic Church for a woman he loves after a magazine ran pictures of the couple kissing and hugging.

Rev. Alberto Cutie (KOO’-tee-ay) told the CBS “Early Show” on Monday he supports the church’s stand that priests should be celibate and said he does not want to become the “anti-celibacy priest.”

“I think it’s a debate that’s going on in our society, and now I’ve become kind of a poster boy for it. But I don’t want to be that. I believe that celibacy is good, and that it’s a good commitment to God,” Cutie said.

Cutie was removed last week as head of the Miami archdiocese’s international radio network and as head of his parish after the Spanish-language magazine TVnotas ran photos of Cutie embracing a woman at a bar and at a beach.

Cutie headed the archdiocese’s Radio Paz and Radio Peace broadcasts, heard throughout the Americas and in Spain, and earned the nickname “Father Oprah” for his relationship advice.

The Cuban-American priest was born in Puerto Rico and previously hosted shows on Telemundo. He is also a syndicated Spanish-language columnist and author of the book “Real Life, Real Love: 7 Paths to a Strong, Lasting Relationship.”

Cutie told CBS he has been romantically involved with the woman in the photos for about two years after being friends for much longer. He said he is still deciding whether to leave the clergy and get married.

“I’m now in the process of thinking about all those things, of making decisions,” Cutie said. “And my bishop has given me the time to think about it. This is a difficult time. It’s a time of transition, it’s a time of thinking about the future.”

“I believe that I’ve fallen in love and I believe that I’ve struggled with that, between my love for God, and my love for the Church and my love for service,” Cutie said.

He appeared on CBS wearing a suit jacket and white shirt, not his priest collar.

Last week, more than one hundred people gathered outside St. Francis de Sales parish in Miami Beach, waving posters and chanting their forgiveness for Cutie.

“I think we all have ideals and we have ways of living,” Cutie said on CBS. “We want to do things right, but sometimes we fall short. And I fell short.”