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.

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Alberto Cutié walked away from a picturesque Spanish monastery Friday evening as a married man, attempting to leave behind seven weeks of controversy that turned the former Roman Catholic priest into tabloid fodder and international celebrity.

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.
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Alberto Cutié walked away from a Coral Gables court early Tuesday morning, marriage license in-hand, according to a record posted on Miami-Dade County Clerk of Courts website that lists 35-year-old Ruhama Buni Canellis as the bride.

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