Filmmaker wants 'Baby Shacks' released
In a second effort to be released from prison pending trial, the reputed former mob boss of the Patriarca crime family has received letters of support from more than a dozen Rhode Islanders, including filmmaker Michael Corrente.
In a motion filed yesterday in Providence Federal Court, lawyers for Manocchio argue the 84-year-old accused former kingpin poses no threat to the community and would have no shot at escaping if placed on a GPS monitoring bracelet.
Included in the memorandum are 18 letters from friends of Manocchio, including doctors, lawyers and former neighbors.
In his letter, Corrente – who produced such films as “Outside Providence” and “Brooklyn Rules” – wrote he spends time with Manocchio “on a regular basis” and finds it “very sad and confusing for me to see Louis Manocchio to be portrayed in the manner in which he is currently portrayed.”
In the letter Corrente wrote about struggling to make his first film “Federal Hill” in 1993.
“On my darkest moments of that process, I was lost and had nowhere to turn,” Corrente wrote. “I found myself seeking advice from the only person I knew I could talk to that would help me figure this out, Louis Mannochio. I sat with Louis for several hours as he encouraged me to keep pursuing my passion and never quit.”
“I’ve known Louis Manocchio for a very long time and I visit him [at the Wyatt Detention Center] as any friend would,” Corrente said in a telephone interview with the Target 12 Investigators. “All of the misconceptions or the appearance of what everyone thinks, if they really know Louis Manocchio, would know it’s just not true.”
In the filing Manocchio’s Boston-based attorneys, Julianne and Joseph Balliro, said they have local property owners willing to post $900,000 in real estate as bond for his release. Manocchio’s brother and nephew already pledged their homes in a previous detention hearing, which would bring the total to $1.5 million in property, they said.
Manocchio was arrested in January as part of a national bust into organized crime. He was scooped up at a Florida airport getting ready to board a flight back to Providence. Manocchio and seven other men are accused of shaking down local strip clubs for protection money.
He was initially granted bail by U.S. Magistrate Judge David Martin, but prosecutors immediately appealed.
Manocchio spent nearly 10 years on the lam in the 1970s after being charged with taking part in the gangland slaying of two renegade bookmakers.
In what U.S. District Court Judge William Smith referred to as a “close call,” Manocchio was ordered held without bail at the Wyatt Detention Center in Central Falls.
As Target 12 first reported, Manocchio was charged again in a superseding indictment in September. His lawyers told Eyewitness News at the time that with the new indictment they may seek an additional detention hearing.
Manocchio's lawyers are asking that he remain under home confinement at his brother's Chepachet home. Dr. Anthony Manocchio lives one mile from the Glocester police department and would have difficulty fleeing, the filing states.
The U.S. Attorney’s office has not yet responded to the filing and no hearing has been set to rule on the request.
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