Exclusive to Fox: Brown University has engaged the services of former U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha, who left his position in May, in anticipation of potential lawsuits stemming from a recent deadly shooting on campus, Fox News reports.
The prestigious university announced that it has hired Cunha, the former U.S. attorney for Rhode Island, to assist in coordinating with law enforcement agencies.
“Brown frequently collaborates with external legal experts to enhance the capabilities of our Office of the General Counsel,” the university stated. “In this instance, we brought on Zachary Cunha, the former United States Attorney for the District of Rhode Island, to aid in our coordination efforts with federal, state, and local law enforcement.”
Brown University retained Zachary Cunha as it braces for possible legal actions following the campus shooting that claimed the lives of two students. (Getty Images)
The university faces scrutiny over the December 13 incident, where students Ella Cook and Mukhammad Aziz Umurzokov were tragically killed inside an academic building on campus.
The alleged shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who briefly attended Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001 to study physics, was discovered 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.
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.
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.
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)
Fox News Digital has reached out to Cunha.
