Luigi “Louie” Manocchio, who was the last to lead the New England Mafia out of Providence’s Federal Hill, has died.
Mr. Manocchio died Sunday morning at the R.I. Veterans Home in Bristol, R.I., Steven O’Donnell, a former Rhode Island State Police superintendent, told the Globe on Monday.
He was 97.
Nicknamed “Baby Shacks,” Mr. Manocchio served as boss of the underworld empire from 1996 until 2009, when he relinquished his position and power in La Cosa Nostra shifted to Boston, authorities have previously said.
“It’s a passing of an era,” O’Donnell said.
“Louie [was] old school, outwardly classy, dressed well, an athlete, a ladies man,” he added, noting Mr. Manocchio’s bachelor status and affinity for women, hence his nickname. “If you met him, you wouldn’t think, you know, ruthless mob boss. He didn’t have the face for this.”
Still, Mr. Manocchio spent a lifetime working inside the Patriarca crime family, which, at its peak, commandeered a swath of the Northeast, from Rhode Island to Maine.
Still, Mr. Manocchio spent a lifetime working inside the Patriarca crime family, which, at its peak, commandeered a swath of the Northeast, from Rhode Island to Maine.
Historically, the New England Mafia made its money through illegal gambling, loansharking, and extortion, and in more recent years, has expanded into drug trafficking, according to authorities.
“Sometimes gangsters are romanticized by our society, when in fact, they are vicious, and they’re all about money and power,” Anthony Pesare, a former detective commander in the Rhode Island State Police, said in an interview.
“I think his passing shows that the mob is not as effective as it used to [be] because the leadership has switched back up into the Boston area,” Pesare added. “I wouldn’t call what he left behind a legacy.”
Mr. Manocchio, who ran the Patriarca crime family out of Addie’s Laundromat on Federal Hill, most recently served a five-and-a-half-year prison stint after he was convicted in 2012 for his role in extorting monthly payments from Providence strip clubs — an amount totaling between $800,000 and $1.5 million dating back to the 1990s.
He was released in 2015.
Famously, Mr. Manocchio spent about a decade on the lam after he was indicted in 1969 for his alleged role in planning two gangland murders in Providence the year before. He fled to Europe but eventually turned himself in.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/12/09/metro/luigi-manocchio-baby-shacks-ri-boss-new-england-mafia-dies/
