Brown University hires former US Attorney Zachary Cunha as possible campus shooting lawsuits loom

First connected Fox: Brown University has retained erstwhile U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha, who stepped down successful May, successful mentation for imaginable lawsuits related to the fatal shooting of 2 students connected field earlier this month, Fox News has learned. 

The Ivy League schoolhouse said it has hired Cunha, who served arsenic the U.S. lawyer for Rhode Island, to assistance coordinate with authorities. 

"Brown works routinely with extracurricular counsel whose expertise complements that of the University's Office of the General Counsel," the assemblage said successful a statement. In this case, we retained Zachary Cunha, the erstwhile United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, to assistance the University successful coordinating with federal, authorities and section instrumentality enforcement agencies."

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RIDOT Director Peter Alviti responds to a question from erstwhile U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha during an oversight proceeding connected the Washington Bridge astatine the State House connected Nov. 13. Cunha has been hired by Brown University amid a slew of imaginable lawsuits implicit the fatal shooting connected field that near 2 students dead.  (Getty Images)

Brown has travel nether disapproval implicit the Dec. 13 shooting, which took the lives of Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov wrong a field world building. 

The suspected gunman, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese nationalist and studied astatine Brown from the autumn of 2000 to the outpouring of 2001 to survey physics, was recovered dormant past week. 

The assemblage came nether dense disapproval implicit the deficiency of information cameras connected field arsenic investigators spent days canvassing the vicinity extracurricular the field for surveillance video, amid a manhunt. 

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Visitors intermission astatine a makeshift memorial for the victims of Saturday's shooting, astatine the Van Wickle Gate astatine Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, successful Providence, R.I. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)

A motive for the killings remains unclear. 

Cunha was nominated to service arsenic the U.S. lawyer for Rhode Island successful 2021 by erstwhile President Joe Biden. He resigned successful February aft receiving notification from the White House that President Donald Trump had directed him to bash so, the Justice Department said astatine the time. 

Cunha is simply a spouse astatine Nixon Peabody, a instrumentality steadfast with offices crossed the globe, wherever helium serves arsenic a subordinate inthe firm's litigation section and authorities investigations and achromatic collar defence signifier group, according to its website. 

As national prosecutors, Cunha's bureau worked cases related to the opioid pandemic, fraud and different crimes, the Justice Department said. 

A bouquet of flowers rests connected snow, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, connected the field of Brown University not acold from wherever a shooting took place, successful Providence, R.I.  (Steven Senne/AP Photo)

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Fox News Digital has reached retired to Cunha.