James Coonan

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James 'Jimmy' Coonan

James Coonan born c.a. 1947 in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan is an Irish American mobster who led the Westies gang during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

He came from a respectable background, both his parents being accountants, but Coonan drifted into organized crime at an early age, hanging out with fellow criminals in his neighborhood, the infamous Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan. At 19 he attempted to assassinate the established leader of the Hell's Kitchen rackets, Mickey Spillane, but it went wrong and Coonan and his associates ended up fleeing for their lives when Spillane's bodyguards returned fire. Not long afterwards Coonan served a sentence for murder.

After returning to the neighborhood from prison, Coonan bought into a saloon called the 596 Club and became a loanshark. On May 13, 1977, Mickey Spillane was shot dead in front of his apartment in Woodside, Queens. Coonan then became the new leader of the West Side Irish-American rackets. It is widely believed that Mafia hitman Roy DeMeo carried out the killing as a favor that helped the Westies and the Gambino family become allies.

Coonan and his Westies gang were notoriously violent and trigger-happy. They were implicated in more than fifty murders during Coonan's reign, and suspected of many more. Their victims included Ruby Stein, a prominent Jewish gangster and loanshark for the Genovese crime family. Coonan and some of his associates owed money to Stein, debts that became moot when Stein turned up floating in the East River, dismembered, with a bullet in his head. Stein's murder apparently caused a great deal of friction between the Westies and the Genovese Family, whom they had fought for control of various West Side rackets, specifically for control of the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center, then still under construction. In fact, Coonan had attempted to assassinate Fat Tony Salerno on several occasions. No retaliation was taken because the Westies were aligned with the powerful Gambino crime family, and because of their fearsome and violent reputation as professional killers.

One of Coonan's closest associates was Mickey Featherstone. Both were tried for the murder of a bartender named Harold "Whitey" Whitehead in 1979. Both Coonan and Featherstone were acquitted after the suicide of two witnesses and the perjury of another, although the following year Coonan did receive a four-year sentence for a firearms offence. When released, he began dealing in narcotics but eventually lay low for a while when he realized the FBI were intent on nailing him.

James Coonan was arrested in 1986 and in 1988 he was given a 75-year prison sentence for racketeering and murder under the RICO Act. His wife, Edna Coonan, received a 15-year sentence for helping her husband's activities in the form of money laundering. Their convictions were facilitated by Mickey Featherstone becoming an informant and testifying for the prosecution.