Manocchio, nicknamed “Baby Shacks,” served as the underworld empire’s boss from 1996 to 2009, when he resigned his position and shifted power in La Cosa Nostra to Boston, authorities have previously said.

According to authorities, the New England Mafia historically made money through illegal gambling, lending and extortion, and in recent years has expanded into the drug trade.

Manocchio, who ran the Patriarca crime family from Addie’s Laundromat on Federal Hill, most recently served a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence after being convicted in 2012 for his role in extorting monthly payments from Providence strip clubs – a total of between $800,000 and $1.5 million dollars from the 1990s.

He was released in 2015 when he was 87 years old.

Former State Police Superintendent Brendan P. Doherty wrote about encounters with Manocchio in his 2019 book “It’s Just the Way It Was: Inside the War on the New England Mob and Other Stories.”

“He was well-read, an intelligent guy,” Doherty told the Globe on Monday. “When I sat with him, he would turn a question into a worldly event, foreign policy matters. It’s the environment he grew up in that got him to where he was – as head of La Cosa Nostra. But if he had grown up in a different environment and had different opportunities, he might have become CEO of a legitimate company.”

He noted that Manocchio was known for his health.

“He was always in good shape and prided himself on being in good shape,” Doherty remembers. “One time I said, ‘A lot of your boys are out of shape and overweight.’ I was just joking. He said, ‘Yeah, I’m working on that.’ He always told the guys, ‘Lose 20 pounds.'”

In his book, Doherty recounted how he tried to get Manocchio’s help in finding Joseph P. Mollicone Jr., the former president of Heritage Loan & Investment Co., who was on the run after stealing millions of dollars from the bank embezzled and triggered a national bankruptcy crisis in the early 1990s. “Mollicone was close to Louie, and most smart people knew it,” he wrote.

That’s when state police wiretapped one of Manocchio’s bookmaking operations in Johnston, he wrote. Doherty showed up unannounced to meet Manocchio at Cafe Verdi on Atwells Avenue in Providence and recounted that conversation:

“Brendan, what brings you here?” Manocchio asked. “Are you sleeping today?”

As they talked, Manocchio asked, “How are you doing?” gomatta Category? (Gomatta is Italian slang for girlfriend).

Before Doherty could respond, Manocchio smiled and said, “Just kidding. I know you’re married.”

Doherty wrote that Manocchio used a delaying tactic but also sent a message: “We know things about you.” But he wrote: “Not that it mattered. We knew more about her.”

Doherty wrote that he told Manocchio that it would be “a feather in my cap” if Mollicone surrendered to him.

Manocchio asked, “What’s in it for me?”

Doherty said: “You’d have one in the bank.”

Manocchio said, “If I get Joe to come back and check in, can I have crap games upstairs?”

Realizing that Manocchio wasn’t taking him seriously, Doherty joked, “If Joe surrenders to me, you can play crap on the sidewalk.”

Manocchio looked him in the eyes, smiled and said, “You’re an honest guy, keep doing what you’re doing, but I can’t help you.”

This story will be updated.

This report used material from previous Globe articles.

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Christopher Gavin can be reached at [email protected]. Edward Fitzpatrick can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him @FitzProv.