Manocchio, last New England mob boss from Rhode Island, dead at 97
He was not on the list.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – Louis Manocchio, the last Rhode
Island boss of the New England crime family, has died. He was 97.
12 News law enforcement analyst Steven O’Donnell, a former
Rhode Island State Police colonel, said Manocchio died early Sunday morning.
Manocchio had been living at the R.I. Veterans Home in Bristol.
Manocchio — whose given name was Luigi – was given several
nicknames over the years by members and associates of the crime family as well
as investigators that kept watch on him. But the one that ultimately stuck was
his alias in court documents from his arrest in 2011, when the former Mafia don
was referred to as “Baby Shacks.”
The unassuming and notoriously health-conscious mobster rose
to the underworld’s top job in 1995 following the arrest of then-boss Francis
“Cadillac Frank” Salemme, who was a close ally to Manocchio.
Despite being the subject of intense surveillance by state
and federal investigators, Manocchio was largely able to fly under the radar,
avoiding any significant legal headaches until 2008. That year Manocchio was
approached by two veteran FBI agents – Special Agents Joseph Degnan and Jeffrey
Cady – while dining on soup at a Federal Hill restaurant. Manocchio,
investigators said in court documents, had just been handed an envelope full of
cash which the FBI was able to trace back to a Providence strip club.
The money, they would later allege, was an extortion
payment.
While the moment didn’t immediately lead to charges, it
proved to be Manocchio’s undoing: he soon stepped down as the boss of the crime
family, and in 2011 he was indicted as part of a sweeping crackdown into
organized crime that ultimately sent him to a federal prison for more than five
years.
He was released in 2015.
Early life
Luigi Manocchio was born in Providence on June 23, 1927, to
his parents Mary and Nicola. He is the second of three sons, the elder Andrew
and the youngest Anthony, who would become a gynecologist.
Veterans Administration records show Manocchio served in
U.S. Army from Jan. 10, 1946, to March 14, 1947. It’s unclear what ended his
short stint in the armed services – investigators would later spot Manocchio
going in for doctor’s appointments at the VA Hospital in Providence – but
public records show he received a monthly pension from the U.S. military.
A review of Providence police intelligence reports shows
Manocchio had some minor scrapes with the law as a juvenile, but his first
arrest as an adult came four days before Christmas in 1952. The arrest report –
which lists the nicknames “Baby Face” and “Baby Shanks” – shows Manocchio was
charged with two counts of assault and robbery, illegal possession of a
revolver, and driving a stolen car. Everything but the weapons charge was
dropped, and he escaped prison time, given a five-year suspended sentence.
But his underworld notoriety came under intense scrutiny in
April 1968 when two renegade bookmakers, Rudolph Marfeo and Anthony Melei, were
gunned down while shopping at Pannone’s market in the Silver Lake neighborhood
of Providence. Investigators at the time said Marfeo was murdered because he
defied then-mob boss Raymond Patriarca’s order to shut down a gambling
operation. Melei was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time, working as
Marfeo’s bodyguard.
Detectives pegged Manocchio not as the triggerman, but as a
conspirator who took part in the planning of the gangland slaying. Arrested six
months after the murder, Manocchio escaped from custody after a judge granted
him bail, then went on the lam for the next decade.
Manocchio had become an international fugitive,
investigators said, spending the 1970s hiding out in Europe — including France
and Italy — where he learned to speak several languages.
1979 law enforcement surveillance picture of Manocchio
Using a dummy passport, according to police, Manocchio was
able to make his way to New York City from time to time, going through great
lengths to disguise himself, even dressing up as a woman to avoid capture.
It was in Europe Manocchio became an avid and risk-taking
downhill skier. (Former investigators have said even in his older years, he
would ski mountains that required a helicopter to get to.)
Ultimately it was Manocchio who turned himself in on July
13, 1979. It took four years for the trial to take place, with Manocchio
prosecuted alongside five other defendants. He was convicted of both accessory
to commit murder and conspiracy, and sent to the Adult Corrections Institution
to serve two life sentences, plus 10 years for good measure.
O’Donnell was a correctional officer at the state prison in
1983 when he first met Manocchio, who was in custody on the murder charge. He
said he initially mistook the organized crime figure for a lawyer.
“He was in a suit and tie holding a briefcase. He was on the
way to court,” O’Donnell said. “He was very polished.”
Despite that polished image, O’Donnell said Manocchio was
someone to be feared.
“Nobody should be misguided by the allure of Manocchio,”
O’Donnell said.
But just two years into his prison sentence, a key witness
against Manocchio was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and admitted to lying
in another related case. It was a disaster for prosecutors. Manocchio was able
to cut a deal, pleading no contest to conspiracy, and given credit for time
served.
Manocchio was set free, and his underworld prestige soared.
Rise to boss
In the years following his release, Manocchio’s continued to
climb in the ranks of the New England La Cosa Nostra. He became a “capo regime”
— or captain — operating a crew of bookmakers, loan sharks and thieves in Rhode
Island.
It was during that time that he forged a relationship with
Salemme, who took the reins as boss after the arrest and subsequent
imprisonment of Raymond “Junior” Patriarca, the son of the man whose surname
still adorns the crime family in New England. (The elder Patriarca died in 1984
of a heart attack.) Investigators in Boston captured photos of Manocchio and
Salemme, who operated out of Boston, meeting on multiple occasions.
Being a rising star in the crime family, however, came with
risks.
A federal case in Boston decades later revealed Manocchio
was likely the target of an assassination attempt by notorious hitman Kevin
Hanrahan. An FBI informant told investigators Hanrahan attempted to purchase
explosives to be placed in a suitcase and sent into Federal Hill restaurant
Euro Bistro, which Manocchio was allegedly a silent partner in and frequented.
But the dramatic hit on Manocchio’s life never happened.
In 1992 – shortly after the informant said Salemme hatched
the plan – Hanrahan was shot multiple times in the head while walking out of
another Atwells Avenue restaurant. Court documents in 2018 indicated former
Rhode Island mob capo Robert “Bobby” DeLuca was poised to testify that Salemme
ordered the hit and Manocchio helped plan it. Neither were charged and the case
remains unsolved.
Following Salemme’s arrest as part of a sweeping 1995
indictment that also included infamous Irish gangster James J. “Whitey” Bulger
and Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi, the center of New England’s organized crime
universe shifted back to Providence: Manocchio was elevated to boss.
Multiple people familiar with Manocchio interviewed over the
years described his style as “old school.” Manocchio was not seen being
chauffeured around in a Cadillac or living in a lush suburban home while
pulling the strings of a powerful ongoing criminal operation. Rather he drove
himself around in an older model white Nissan Maxima and lived in a modest
apartment above Euro Bistro.
Standing 5’9″, Manocchio was always in impeccable shape,
described as a “health nut” by many observers. Undercover detectives and agents
would often spy him rising early to jog several mornings a week around Triggs
golf course in Providence, stopping at a specific tree to do a set of pull-ups,
then continue his run. Possibly getting the bug from his years as a fugitive,
Manocchio continued to be an avid traveler – a factor prosecutors would later
cite in arguing to keep him detained following his final arrest.
In an interview in 2011, former state police detective
Anthony Pesare said Manocchio “adhered to the historical Sicilian mobster
image.”
“Maintain a low profile, don’t dress flashy, don’t make
yourself a target by being showy,” Pesare said.
But that didn’t stop federal and state law enforcement from
trying to pin a case on him.
In 1996 Manocchio got jammed up in an unlikely snafu:
getting a new washer and dryer installed in his elderly mother’s house. The
problem for Manocchio was that the appliances were stolen, and investigators
said they were “tribute” payments as homage to his stature in the crime family.
But it wasn’t a major case, and in 1999 Manocchio pleaded no
contest to the charges, receiving three years’ probation. From time to time his
name would appear in federal court documents linked to other organized crime
investigations – labeled by the FBI as boss – but he was never charged for his
role as the reputed CEO of crime family. That changed in 2011.
Two years after agents Degnan and Cady surprised the aging
Mafia don over his soup, Manocchio was arrested boarding a plane in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida, for a return flight to Rhode Island.
He was instead taken into custody by the U.S. Marshals
Service, and bounced around the country for weeks before being brought into
U.S. District Court in Providence to face six federal counts including
extortion, conspiracy, and RICO conspiracy. His decision to step down as mob
boss had not spared him liability in a national crackdown into organized crime
by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The thrust of the case against Manocchio was that he
extorted protection payments from multiple Rhode Island strip clubs. The cash
the FBI agents confiscated from Manocchio that night on Federal Hill contained
marked bills which were traced back to the Cadillac Lounge in Providence.
In all, the multiyear joint federal and state investigation
ensnared nine members or associates of the New England La Cosa Nostra, wiping
out the upper echelons of the crime family and all but crippling its ability to
operate like it had in decades past.
As part of a plea deal with federal prosecutors, Manocchio
admitted guilt to one count of RICO conspiracy, and on May 11, 2012, U.S.
District Judge William Smith sentenced the defendant to 5 1/2 years in prison.
(He was given credit for time served as he had been in custody since his
arrest.)
Three years later, Manocchio was released from a federal
prison in North Carolina and placed on home confinement, and six months after
that he was free to walk around Federal Hill once again. He completed his
probation three years later.
“It’s been remarkable journey in La Cosa Nostra,” O’Donnell
said. “For 80 years he lived in that life, that world.”
Details of the funeral arrangements have not yet been
released.
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