Irish Gangs - The Westies - Part 4

Coonan and Featherstone
During the late 1970s, Coonan tightened his alliance between the Westies and the Gambino organization, then run by Paul Castellano. Coonan's main contact was Roy DeMeo, who had brought him word of Spillane's assassination. With Coonan's cunning and Featherstone's reputation, the two men ensured a notoriously vicious stranglehold on the already brutal racketeering circles of Hell's Kitchen. In 1979 both Coonan and Featherstone were acquitted of the murder of a bartender, Harold Whitehead. Another Westie, Jimmy McElroy, was acquitted of the murder of a Teamster in 1980.

Even as both Westies leaders were imprisoned in 1980 -- Coonan on gun possession charges, Featherstone on a federal counterfeiting rap -- the gambling, loansharking, and union shakedowns continued on the streets of the West Side. After DeMeo himself was murdered, Coonan's Gambino family connection became Danny Marino, a capo from Brooklyn. Coonan eventually interacted directly with John Gotti, who took over the Gambino Family after the murder of Castellano in December 1985. From time to time, the Westies worked for the Gambino Family as a contract killer squad.

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." Holly became an enemy of the Westies gang when an off-duty policeman saw John Bokun shoot Michael Holly in Holly's bar. The policeman shot and killed John Bokun and the Westies blamed Holly for the death. Holly was murdered in broad daylight on West 35th Street in April, 1985 by Westie member, and John's brother Billy Bokun, while wearing a wig and moustache to impersonate Featherstone, and renting a car identical to the one Featherstone was driving.

Featherstone was convicted in early 1986 and began cooperating with the government in hopes of getting the murder conviction overturned. The information he and his wife Sissy provided, and the recordings they helped make, achieved this aim. 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. The judge immediately overturned the verdict.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• irish
• gang
• the
• westies
• hells
• kitchen

[muttilo]

"Fatty drivin around shovin dirty water hot dogs down her troat one after the other ..." Lovely descrpition .

[strappingYungLad]

@SULLY2014

...us? riiiiiiight

[rubydawn1]

Something about the old Irish neighbourhoods I like the old days when the Irish were with the Irish.

[MITCHM1993]

if i was getting stoned and someone shot someone in the head i would of gon white hahaha

[missbelle1976]

is there such a thing as Ireland hip hop?

[ItalianMick2025]

@proni1 Like what?

[NicKingPapiChulo]

@muttilo they were called the brooklyn mob cause they were from the italian section of brooklyn but they also had their spot in little italy

[proni1]

story is full of holes

[proni1]

whats up with the terrible reenactments

[daboe0909]

R.I.P Jimmy McElroy

[leedumett444]

owney madden was hell's kitchen's most feared boss, also big bill dwyer was king of the bootleggers, and dwyer grew up in hell's kitchen as well. the madden/dwyer combine was powerfull in the 1920s.

[toughnumber]

@muttilo sounds like a babe lol!