Alleged Vermont Shooter Is A Former Advisor And Broker

The man charged with shooting three men of Palestinian descent last weekend was terminated just weeks before the shooting from CUSO Financial Services, where he had worked as an advisor and broker since January, according to Finra records.

Jason Eaton, 48, of Burlington, Vt., pleaded not guilty to three charges of attempted second-degree murder in Chittenden County Superior Court in Burlington this morning. He’s being held without bail until a hearing is scheduled in the next few days, according to news reports. 

Eaton began his financial career at Cadaret Grant & Co. in 2008, where he remained for about three years, according to Finra's BrokerCheck database. After an unexplained gap of six years, he resurfaced at Edward Jones in 2018, a position that lasted less than a year. Between 2019 and 2021, Eaton worked at TD Ameritrade before moving to CUSO in January.

In a statement, CUSO Financial said it was “horrified by the shooting” and “cooperating with law enforcement.” It declined to disclose why Eaton was let go in early November. CUSO Financial is a broker-dealer and RIA subsidiary of Atria.

The crime, which happened in Burlington, has drawn national attention because of tensions relating to the Middle East conflict between Israel and Hamas. Both President Biden and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland have publicly expressed outrage at the shooting, which is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

The three victims—identified in news media as Hisham Awartani, a junior at Brown University; Kinnan Abdalhamid, a student at Haverford College in Pennsylvania; and Tahseen Ahmed, a student at Trinity College in Connecticut--were conversing in Arabic and English as they were walking to a dinner, police said. Two of the three were wearing head scarves known as keffiyeh, a traditional Palestinian headdress, according to police.

Two of the three are U.S. citizens, and the third is a legal resident. They remain hospitalized in intensive care at the University of Vermont Medical Center, Rich Price, uncle of one of the victims and their host on Thanksgiving, said at a press conference.

“We still do not know as much as we want to know,” said Burlington police chief Jon Murad at the press conference.

Also at that press conference, the U.S Attorney for the District of Vermont, Nikolas Kerest, said his office and the U.S. Justice Department will “follow the facts where they lead.”