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First on Fox: Brown University has retained former U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha, who stepped down in May, in preparation for possible lawsuits related to the fatal shooting of two students on campus earlier this month, Fox News has learned.
The Ivy League school said it has hired Cunha, who served as the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island, to help coordinate with authorities.
“Brown works routinely with outside counsel whose expertise complements that of the University’s Office of the General Counsel,” the university said in a statement. In this case, we retained Zachary Cunha, the former United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, to assist the University in coordinating with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.”
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Former U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha has been hired by Brown University amid a slew of potential lawsuits over the fatal shooting on campus that left two students dead. (Getty Images)
Brown has come under criticism over the Dec. 13 shooting, which took the lives of Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov inside a campus academic building.
The suspected gunman, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, 48, a Portuguese national who studied at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001 to study physics, was found dead last week.
The university came under heavy criticism over the lack of security cameras on campus as investigators spent days canvassing the neighborhood outside the campus for surveillance video, amid a manhunt.
BROWN UNIVERSITY SHOOTING REVEALS MAJOR GAP IN PROVIDENCE’S $1M ‘REAL TIME CRIME CENTER’
Visitors pause at a makeshift memorial for the victims of Saturday’s shooting, at the Van Wickle Gate at Brown University, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025, in Providence, Rhode Island. (Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo)
A motive for the killings remains unclear. On Monday, Brown announced that Rodney Chatman, its vice president for public safety and emergency management, was put on leave immediately. Hugh T. Clements, former chief of police of the Providence Police Department, will serve in an interim role while Chatman is on leave.
Cunha was nominated to serve as the U.S. attorney for Rhode Island in 2021 by former President Joe Biden. He resigned in February after receiving notification from the White House that President Donald Trump had directed him to do so, the Justice Department said at the time.
Cunha is a partner at Nixon Peabody, a law firm with offices across the globe, where he serves in the firm’s litigation department and government investigations and white-collar defense practice group, according to its website.
As federal prosecutors, Cunha’s office worked cases related to the opioid pandemic, fraud and other crimes, the Justice Department said.
Fox News Digital has reached out to Cunha.
Amid the criticism of safety measures on the university campus, Brown announced a series of actions, including conducting an external after-action review of the shooting and a comprehensive campus safety and security assessment of the camps.
A bouquet of flowers rests on snow, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, on the campus of Brown University not far from where a shooting took place, in Providence. (Steven Senne/AP Photo)
In addition, the U.S. Department of Education on Monday said it will review the university to ensure it complied with the Jeanne Clery Campus Safety Act (Clery Act), which requires colleges to meet certain campus safety and security-related requirements as a condition of receiving federal student aid.
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“After two students were horrifically murdered at Brown University when a shooter opened fire in a campus building, the Department is initiating a review of Brown to determine if it has upheld its obligation under the law to vigilantly maintain campus security,” said Education Linda McMahon.
“Students deserve to feel safe at school, and every university across this nation must protect their students and be equipped with adequate resources to aid law enforcement,” she added. “The Trump Administration will fight to ensure that recipients of federal funding are vigorously protecting students’ safety and following security procedures as required under federal law.”