Bad blood between Coonan and Featherstone, in part due to Featherstone’s distaste for Coonan’s Italian Mafia connections, eventually led to Featherstone being framed for the murder of Michael Holly, a construction worker and neighborhood bar owner who refused to give the Westies protection money. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. This was a method of disposing of his victims that Coonan would repeat many times. He volunteered for combat in Vietnam and would claim he spent time killing with the Special Forces. The hit-squad killed 68 members of Spillane’s gang with most of them killed by being gunned down. However, Coonan was still in the 'learning stages' back then, as described by former Westies member Billy Beattie. The judge sentenced Featherstone to 6 years and he did time in the Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield Missouri in the psychiatric ward. In 1969, Police arrested Coonan on kidnapping and murder beefs. [3] According to testimony given in 1987 by ex-Westies member turned informant William Beattie, Stein was killed and beheaded in 1977 in a move to erase Coonan's debt and prove the Westies power through viciousness. Edna put out a family memorial, about their family being chained together in hell in the afterlife. From time to time, the Westies worked for the Gambino crime family as a contract killer squad. Coonan is currently incarcerated after being sentenced to 75 years in the late 1980s. On one occasion, Coonan killed a loanshark victim who could not pay his debt, dismembered him and cut off his hands. This was a racket that Spillane ran to collect a ransom from the victim's family. Coonan learned how to dismember murder victims from Edward Cummiskey, a fellow Westies member, prison-trained as a butcher, and he disposed of the mangled remains in the swift currents of the East River. During his time as boss of the Westies, they gained a reputation as a vicious crew of murderers. Coonan had forgotten to puncture the lungs and Stein's torso was found washed ashore. After Coonan took over as the boss of Hell's Kitchen, he resolved to have Stein murdered. Coonan's main contact was Roy DeMeo and Anthony Gaggi, who had brought him word of Spillane's assassination. Featherstone plead guilty to one racketeering charge and was soon released for his cooperation. The story is that the Genovese crime family sent a team of heavily-armed hitmen to kill off Spillane’s gang. In this case, he was found not guilty due to insanity. Coonan lived with his wife, Edna, in Hazlet, New Jersey before his incarceration. Coonan's criminal career began to take of at the age of eighteen, when he swore to seek revenge against Mickey Spillane, the boss of Hell's Kitchen because Spillane had kidnapped and pistol whipped Coonan's father who was an accountant not involved in criminal activity. Those who chose Coonan's side were immune from these harsh activities because Spillane's gang was much older and more respectable. This was a racket that Spillane ran to collect a ransom from the victim's family. From time to time, the Westies worked for the Gambino family as a contract killer squad. Any resident of Hell’s Kitchen who who took Spillane’s side were subject to beatings, kidnappings, store vandalism, and robberies.

Jimmy Coonan’s criminal career started in his teens. The "war" began in 1966 when the younger Coonan purchased an automatic machine gun and fired off a magazine from the top of a Hell's Kitchen tenement building at Spillane and his associates. His reign lasted through the mid-1980s. He opened up the gang to the lucrative drug dealing rackets as well as continuing extortion, numbers, loansharking and counterfeiting rackets in the area. Another Westie, Jimmy McElroy, was acquitted of the murder of a Teamster in 1980. James Coonan was born in 1946 in the Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan area of New York City. The information he and his wife Sissy provided, and the recordings they helped make, achieved this aim. At least 30 of Spillane’s gang were killed by bombings. Instead of a cross, she hid an inverted pentagram in a flower engraved into the stone. Mickey Featherstone was a complete nut case. https://mafia.wikia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Coonan?oldid=37234. Spillane eventually went into hiding and was killed by the Gambino crime family (rumored to have been at the hands of Roy DeMeo) as a favor to Coonan. He instead told prosecutors that Bokun had committed the murder, and he became an informant. Bad blood between Coonan and Featherstone, in part due to Featherstone's distaste for Coonan's Italian mob connections, eventually led to Featherstone being framed for the murder of Michael Holly, a construction worker and neighborhood bar owner who refused to give the Westies "protection money." Since his marriage a year ago, in 1974, he'd moved out of the neighborhood to a modest, two-story house just across the river in Keansburg, New Jersey, a quiet, lily-white middle-class suburb. Coonan reportedly killed a loan shark victim who could not pay his debt, dismembered him and cut off his hands. It should not be visible. Featherstone, if still alive is in the Wit Sec. Coonan's whole purpose was to restore his father's honor. Jimmy C. purchased a machine gun and got on top of a Hells Kitchen tenement building waited for Micky Spillane. Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Google Podcasts | Stitcher | RSS | More, Jimmy Coonan brought the Westies into the 20th Century and presided over the most bloody and violent gang in New York City history. A Westie named John Bokun went to Holly’s bar and shot him. He put the hands in bags in a freezer with the intention of using them to put the fingerprints on a gun he would use in an upcoming murder he had in mind. Coonan and his men forgot to puncture the lungs and Stein’s torso washed ashore.
Featherstone testified in open court for four weeks in the trial that began in September 1987 and concluded with major convictions in 1988. After Coonan took over as boss of the Westies, he had Stein murdered to gain control of his gambling and loansharking customers. Coonan used these gang members to lure Stein to the 596 Club bar where he was shot to death. James Coonan was a baby boomer born December 21, 1946. [4][5], In 1979, Coonan was tried and acquitted for the murder of Harold Whitehead, but convicted on weapons charges and sentenced to four years in federal prison. The police and FBI  suspected him of a series of mob contract killings. Your email address will not be published. Coonan forged a strong alliance with the Gambino crime family in the late 70s, and became their hit-squad and enforcement arm for the next 10 years. Learn how your comment data is processed. Seeing a pic of Coonan is pretty rare. Stein was lured to the 596 Club bar where he was shot to death. In September 1986 the prosecutor who oversaw Featherstone's conviction in the Holly frame told the presiding judge that post-conviction investigation had revealed Featherstone was innocent of that particular crime. Jimmy Coonan is currently being held at Lewisburg Federal Penetentiary, he is 59 years old and is Inmate Number 13874-054 his projected release date is November 6th, 2036, he'll be like 89 or some shit if he lives that long. Coonan eventually interacted directly with John Gotti, who took over the Gambino crime family after the murder of Castellano in December 1985. Don’t forget to listen to Aaron on the Big Dumb Fun Show, live on Monday nights. In 1988, he and his wife went into a witness protection program. He went on trial with Coonan for the killing of Harold Whitehead, and they were acquitted in December 1979 after one witness killed himself and another refused to testify. During the early 1970s, Coonan recruited a gang of young Irish hoods and they began kidnapping, beating, and murdering any Spillane loyalists. After his release he resumed power, but in 1988 was convicted of racketeering under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and sentenced to 75 years in prison with the judge's recommendation of denying parole. [9][a], "The last few years had been good to Jimmy Coonan. Coonan also hoped to pocket Stein's 'Black Book' that contained all of the information on his loanshark operation and collect on the debts for himself. Coonan's whole purpose was to restore his father's honor. When Coonan was a young man, Mickey Spillane, a well-known mobster who frequently employed the kidnap-for-ransom racket of local merchants to their families, had kidnapped, pistol-whipped and severely beaten Coonan's father John, a local accountant. Coonan is serving his time at the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. Coonan's criminal career began to take of at the age of eighteen, when he swore to seek revenge against Mickey Spillane, the boss of Hell's Kitchen because Spillane had kidnapped and pistol whipped Coonan's father who was an accountant not involved in criminal activity. He was released in late 1971 and continued on with his war and his criminal career. 1991)", "7 Westies Given Sentences Of Up to 75 Years in Prison", "Prosecutor Says Gang Terrorized Hell's Kitchen", James and Edna Coonan's 1989 appeal brief, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=James_Coonan&oldid=983832836, People convicted of murder by the United States federal government, Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Imprisonment until 2030 in FCI Schuylkill (Pennsylvania), This page was last edited on 16 October 2020, at 14:23. Featherstone’s violence caught the eye of Coonan.


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