Court Filing: Murdered Mob Muscle Kevin Hanrahan Planned On Knocking Off N.E. Mafia Boss & Underboss W/ Explosives

Slain Providence mob enforcer Kevin Hanrahan intended on assassinating the top two leaders of the New England mafia in the weeks preceding his own homicide in 1992. Per new federal court filings related to an upcoming murder trial in Massachusetts — first reported on Friday by Rhode Island television station WPRI and its resident mobologist Tim White –, Hanrahan planned to use plastic explosives to kill then-Patriarca crime family boss Francis (Cadillac Frank) Salemme and his underboss Luigi (Baby Shacks) Manocchio and possibly conducted dry runs for both attacks before meeting his own grisly demise shortly thereafter.

It’s unclear if Hanrahan had backing from any high-ranking crime family figures in his twin assassination plot. For the majority of Salemme’s five-year run atop the organization he feuded with a renegade mob crew based out of East Boston. He survived being shot six times in a suburban Boston pancake house in June 1989.

Salemme, 84, is standing trial this month in federal court for the May 1993 murder of nightclub owner Stevie DiSarro, a business partner of his who had begun cooperating with the government. He’s pled not guilty. Opening arguments are scheduled for next week. Before being indicted in the DiSarro case two years ago, Cadillac Frank had been residing in the Witness Protection Program.

DiSarro’s remains were exhumed from under a converted Rhode Island textile mill in March 2016. Authorities believe he was strangled to death inside the Salemme family home in the posh Boston suburb of Sharon, Massachusetts.

Besides the DiSarro homicide, Salemme appears in jeopardy of being arrested for his role in killing Hanrahan, too. His one-time right-hand man in the mafia, former Providence mob captain, Robert (Bobby the Cigar) DeLuca has implicated him in both murders. The 72-year old DeLuca has pled guilty to playing a role in the DiSarro murder conspiracy and the Hanrahan murder conspiracy.

A court filing from last month in the DiSarro case revealed that DeLuca fingers 90-year old Baby Shacks Manocchio, Salemme’s successor as don but currently retired from activity in the mob, as being tapped by Salemme to handle the details of the Hanrahan hit. Grand jury proceedings have been active in the Hanrahan investigation since last spring.

Kevin Hanrahan

The most-recent court filing cites a conversation between an FBI agent and an informant where the informant told the agent that Hanrahan had purchased plastic explosives from a contact in Boston as a means of eliminating Salemme and Manocchio.The informant further explained that Hanrahan was going to send a remote-control airplane stocked with some of the explosives into Salemme’s Sharon home to kill him and his wife and the rest he was going to place into a briefcase and detonate in Manocchio’s Providence restaurant headquarters, The Euro Bistro, located in the Federal Hill neighborhood, Rhode Island’s Little Italy — Manocchio has long lived in an apartment above the now-shuttered bistro. Salemme got tipped off to Hanrahan’s intentions, saw Hanrahan casing his home and telephoned Manocchio to warn him of the danger, according to the informant. Manocchio told Salemme on the phone that Hanrahan had in fact been frequenting his eatery with a briefcase in tow.

The 39-year old Hanrahan was of Irish descent and used as a collector and reputed hit man by New England Italian mob administrators for years. Just prior to the news of his wanting to blow up Salemme and Manocchio reaching Patriarca clan brass, Hanrahan had angered his superiors in the syndicate by attempting to shake down a pair of bookies already paying protection money to Providence mafia powers. The bookies told authorities that they were present when Salemme was made aware of the extortion effort and paid extra cash to Rhode Island mob captain Anthony (The Saint) St. Laurent in the days leading up to Hanrahan’s murder to get Hanrahan off their backs. St. Laurent died of natural causes in the fall of 2016, mere weeks after being sprung from a prison sentence.

Hanrahan was gunned down outside a Federal Hill steakhouse on the evening of September 18, 1992. Indicted on racketeering charges in 1995, Salemme flipped in 1999, however neglected to tell his FBI handlers of any role he played in either the DiSarro or Hanrahan homicides, despite admitting his participation in almost a dozen other gangland slayings. Manocchio ruled the Patriarca crime family from the time of Salemme’s imprisonment in 1995 until he voluntarily resigned his post in 2009. He served a four-and-a-half year prison stint (2011-2015) for extorting Rhode Island strip clubs. His welcome home party was held The Euro Bistro.