TRANSCRIPT:
Ian Donnis: U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha, what is top of mind for you when you look back on your tenure as Rhode Island’s top federal prosecutor?
Zachary Cunha: Well, you know, as I look back at the past three years, I’m tremendously pleased at the extent to which we’ve been able to make progress across a lot of different areas that have a real impact on the lives of Rhode Islanders. I look at what we’ve done with respect to fentanyl and the opioid crisis, whether it’s prosecuting individuals who are responsible for that conduct, whether it’s going after chains of recovery providers that are abusing and taking advantage of patients, whether it’s being out in the community and educating on that issue. So I’m proud of the work that we’ve done there. I’m proud of the work we’ve done in the fraud space to go after individuals who are victimizing the elderly and our businesses and folks across cities and towns throughout Rhode Island. I’m particularly proud of the work we’ve done in the civil rights arena. Some of the stuff we’ve done to ensure fair lending, and the work we’ve done to make sure that kids in hospitals who are not receiving the care that they require in the communities get that care and get out in the communities and have a chance at a real childhood. So there are a lot of things that I look back at where I’m tremendously pleased at our ability to dig in and make an impact, and that all has to do with the men and women of my office.
Donnis: Well, speaking of the people you work with, you work with the FBI. It used to be that criticism of the FBI came mostly from the left. Now it’s more from the right, including President-elect Trump’s nominee to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, who calls the FBI headquarters in Washington a museum of the deep state. He says the agency needs to be seriously overhauled. Based on your experience working with the FBI here in Rhode Island, does the agency need to be overhauled?
Cunha: All I can tell you is based on my own experience here in Rhode Island and New England and throughout my 20-year career with the department, the FBI does a superb job of law enforcement. We are lucky to have some – like the folks in my office – truly dedicated public servants who are out there every day, often putting their lives on the line to do the right thing. I have the utmost confidence in them and our other federal and state and local law enforcement partners.
Donnis: President-elect Trump has repeatedly talked of pardoning at least some of the people who rioted at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. To you, does that signal a renaissance of militant extremism?
Cunha: Look, the pardon power is the president’s power and those are decisions that get made in Washington. I know that violent extremism, whatever its form, is dangerous to our communities. That’s one of the reasons we’ve been out in our communities with our United Against Hate program, talking about how that kind of conduct is corrosive. All I can tell you is there’s been a long standing commitment in Rhode Island to combating that kind of activity, and I hope that that continues regardless of the politics.
Donnis: Luigi “Baby Shacks” Manocchio died last month. He was a former one-time leader of organized crime in New England and a Rhode Islander. The FBI office in Boston even folded its organized crime unit in a sign of how La Cosa Nostra is a spent force. I wonder, what do you consider the top emerging threats for federal prosecutors because we know that nature abhors a vacuum?
Cunha: Nature does abhor a vacuum and although I’m as glad as anyone that the bad old days of LCN are gone, that certainly doesn’t mean that we don’t have organized crime, and we see that all the time. Whether it’s retail theft rings, whether it’s individuals who are taking advantage in an organized way our elderly family members and community members to victimize them and clean out their savings accounts to gangs, whether it’s on the east side of Providence or elsewhere, who are engaged in violent conflicts with other gangs. During my tenure, I was proud to go after some of those gangs with a RICO prosecution. So we see all of those emerging threats when I talk about some of those financial crimes. Some of those organizations are transnational. They go across borders, and some of that money winds up in Eastern Europe and in Africa. And that requires the kind of sophistication of federal law enforcement to go after. So you’re absolutely right, there are emerging threats, but there are also capabilities to deal with those.
Donnis: Speaking of emerging threats, people in Rhode Island are still dealing with a cyber breach of the state’s online portal for health and human services. This is part of the brave new world we’re living in with artificial intelligence and deep fakes that can simulate actual human beings. How do you see the federal role in responding to such things?
Cunha: Well, I think it’s twofold. The FBI has substantial resources to dealing with cyber intrusions and incursions that they make available to businesses or entities or state governments when things like that happen. But there’s also a critical prosecutorial role. I have to tell you, some of the things you just mentioned concern me from a long term perspective tremendously because the amount of damage that folks without the benefit of AI, without the benefit of sophisticated cyber tools, can use to defraud our friends and neighbors is already substantial and that’s only going to get worse when you have tools that can mimic somebody’s voice or that can help better persuade somebody that the person they’re talking to is legitimate and persuade them to give them money.
Donnis: Critics say that Prospect Medical Holdings, the owner of Roger Williams Medical Center in Providence, and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital in North Providence, epitomizes the downside of private equity and health care. But if these practices in which investors and executives have been been hugely enriched does not break the law, is there a role for the federal government in trying to diminish the role of private equity in the healthcare space?
Cunha: You know, I look at it less from the perspective of who is the owner and more as what is being done and how is the business being operated? There’s a lot that we do, from a federal oversight standpoint, when it comes to healthcare fraud prosecutions, when it comes to entities, whether they’re run by individuals, corporations, private equity, or otherwise, that are billing the federal government for services that are not rendered, that are taking advantage of patients, that are engaging in unfair business practices. So I think that has historically been the focus of the work that I have done, that my office has done, and where I don’t see any let up in terms of that enforcement effort, regardless of who owns any individual entity.
Donnis: Your predecessor Peter Neronha is now Rhode Island’s Attorney General. He is term limited, he can’t seek re-election for that role. What is next for you? Are you looking at running for Attorney General next year?
Cunha: What is next is hopefully a little bit of respite when I’m done with this job. I’m still hard at it, and when this is over I’m gonna take a pause and take a hard, long look at what comes next. I’ll tell you, I’ve been in public service for almost a quarter century now. I have loved every minute of that work, and I’ve relished the chance to do the jobs that I’ve had the chance to do. Whatever comes next, I hope I have some opportunity in the future to continue to be of service and of use to the community.
Donnis: Sounds like you’re not ruling it out.
Cunha: I’m ruling in nothing and I’m ruling out nothing.
Donnis: What has been the biggest surprise you’ve faced as U. S. Attorney?
Cunha: You know, one of the things that has surprised me pleasantly is the reception that we get in the community for the work that we do. The openness and the gratitude of our communities for us coming out there and engaging and the impact that our prosecutions have on the lives of victims in a real way. One of the things we really strive to do, whatever the kind of case, whether it’s a financial fraud case or a violent crime case, is to make sure that victims are informed and involved and the extent to which the work that prosecutors in my office do makes an impact on people’s lives never ceases to touch me.
Donnis: We’ve got to leave it there. Thank you so much for joining us.
Cunha: Thanks for having me.
