I am using Windows 7, Java 1.8.0_111-b14, and Apache Maven 3.3.9.
Now, concerning the shade plugin version, I think it could be related with the issue I had. At the beggining I was using version 1.3.1. Then when Jim told me you were using version 2.4.3 at GeoMesa, I switched to that version, but the issue persisted. After a little bit of research, I realized a lot of poms doesn't specify any version for the shade plugin. I guess this uses the latest version by default. So I deleted the version anchor on the shade plugin and rebuilt the jar. Everything seems to work perfectly now.
			<plugin>
				<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
				<artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
				<executions>
					<execution>
						<phase>package</phase>
						<goals>
							<goal>shade</goal>
						</goals>
						<configuration>
							<createDependencyReducedPom>false</createDependencyReducedPom>
							<filters>
								<filter>
									<artifact>*:*</artifact>
									<excludes>
										<exclude>META-INF/*.SF</exclude>
										<exclude>META-INF/*.DSA</exclude>
										<exclude>META-INF/*.RSA</exclude>
										<exclude>org/objectweb/asm/**</exclude>
									</excludes>
								</filter>
							</filters>
							<relocations>
								<relocation>
									<pattern>com.clearspring.analytics</pattern>
									<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.com.clearspring.analytics</shadedPattern>
								</relocation>
								<relocation>
									<pattern>com.google.common</pattern>
									<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.com.google.common</shadedPattern>
								</relocation>
								<relocation>
									<pattern>org.apache.commons.codec</pattern>
									<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.org.apache.commons.codec</shadedPattern>
								</relocation>
								<!-- shade thrift because spark depends on 0.9.2 and accumulo 1.8 
									depends on 0.9.3 -->
								<relocation>
									<pattern>org.apache.thrift</pattern>
									<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.org.apache.thrift</shadedPattern>
								</relocation>
							</relocations>
							<transformers>
								<!-- This bit sets the main class for the executable jar as you otherwise -->
								<!-- would with the assembly plugin -->
								<transformer
									implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ManifestResourceTransformer">
									<manifestEntries>
										<Main-Class>com.praxedo.geomesa.geomesa_spark.Test</Main-Class>
									</manifestEntries>
								</transformer>
								<transformer
									implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ServicesResourceTransformer" />
							</transformers>
						</configuration>
					</execution>
				</executions>
			</plugin>
José.