Former Boss of New England's Patriarca Crime Family dead at 97

Former Boss of New England's Patriarca Crime Family dead at 97

  December 08, 2024    Dapper_Don

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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.

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.

https://www.wpri.com/target-12/manocchio-last-new-england-mob-boss-from-rhode-island-dead-at-97/