BACKGROUND
Defendant-appellant Kevin Kelly and his nine co-defendants were charged with racketeering and various other offenses related to their participation in the affairs of the "Westies" (also known as "Coonan's Crew," the "Westside Guys," and the "Westside Irish Mob"), an organized crime group based in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan. Although Kelly did not join the Westies until the late 1970s or early 1980s, an overview of the criminal organization's history is essential to understanding the specific charges at issues. The following facts and inferences can reasonably be drawn from the evidence adduced at trial.

1. The Westies Rise to Power
The Westies were formed in the mid-1960s when James Coonan and his confederates a attempted a wrest control of criminal activity in Hell's Kitchen from the then predominant gang leader, Michael "Mickey" Spillage. Coonan was ultimately victorious in his efforts to drive Spillane from power and seize control of the West Side. Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, the Westies, under Coonan's leadership, maintained and expanded their positions as the preeminent organized crime group in Hell's Kitchen. By the Mid-1970's, Francis "Mickey" Featherstone had become Coonan's righthand man and the Westies' second-in-command. The Westies' money-making activities centered around loan shaking, narcotics dealing, extorting local labor unions and controlling New York's West Side piers. In conducting their various illicit businesses, Coonan and his gang routinely engaged in extreme acts of violence and effectively cultivated a reputation for barbarism. For example, in January 1978, Coonan, and fellow Westies, Mickey Featherstone and Anton "Tony" Lucich, murdered and dismembered Richard Tassiello, a loansharking customer who had fallen behind in his payments. In May 1977, in a similarly macabre incident, Coonan, William "Billie" Beattie and other members of the Westies, murdered and dismembered Charles "Ruby" Stein, a loansharking financier to whom Coonan owed a substantial sum of money.

In the late 1970s, the Westies' power was further enhanced when it entered into an alliance with the Gambino Organized Crime Family. The Gambinos agreed to finance the Westies' loansharking operation and also permitted the Westies to use the Gambino name and reputation in connection with their own illicit businesses. In exchange, the Westies paid the Gambino Family ten percent of the proceeds from various illegal activities.

At trial, the government established that Kelly's participation in the Westies began in the late 1970s. The evidence against Kelly concerned several specific areas of criminal activity and criminal acts.

2. The Westies' Loansharking Operation
In the mid-1970s, Coonan established a loansharking business through which he supplied money at high rates of interest to Westies members. In turn, the members loaned money at usurious rates of interest to inhabitants of the Hell's Kitchens community. Although Kelly initially served as a collector and enforcer for other gang members, he was eventually rewarded with his own loansharking operation. Consistent with the Westies' reputation, Kelly utilized violence to ensure that his loansharking customers kept up their payments. For example, Kelly and fellow Westies Kenneth Shannon dealt with one delinquent loansharking customer by stripping and beating the customer, and then leaving him tied to a tree. In another incident, Kelly and fellow Westie James McElroy, pistol-whipped a loansharking customer for missing his payments and for making disparaging remarks about the Westies.

3. The Westies' Cocaine Conspiracies
From 1984 until 1986, the Westies were involved in four interrelated cocaine distribution operations. Kelly and two other Westies members were primarily responsible for control of cocaine distribution in bars located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Kelly also lent assistance to other gang members who operated their own cocaine distribution operations. In particular, Kelly supplied both cocaine and financing to his fellow gang members, and helped them collect debts.

4. The Murder of Vincent Leone and the Conspiracy to Extort ILA Local 1909
Vincent Leone was an officer of Local 1909 of the International Longshoremen's Association ("ILA") and an associate of the Gambino Family. The Gambinos assigned Leone to help the Westies oversee criminal activities of the West Side piers, where members of Local 1909 worked. In November 1983, the Westies discovered that Leone had been skimming money from the profits generated on the piers. Consequently, Coonan, who has then in prison, sent word through his wife Edna that Leone was to be killed. At the same time, Coonan ordered the murder of a Westie who had defied him and also instructed that another Westie was to be "put out of business." As directed, Edna Coonan approached Mickey Featherstone and offered him "control of the piers" if he would undertake the assignment. Featherstone refused. Several days later, however, Featherstone mentioned Coonan's request to Kelly and McElroy. Kelly expressed interest and, accompanied by McElroy, visited Coonan in prison. During their prison meeting, Coonan confirmed that he wanted Leone killed and promised Kelly and McElroy control of the piers if they engineered the murder and convinced Featherstone to assist in overseeing waterfront criminal activity.

On February 11, 1984, Leone was driving in his car with Kelly and McElroy. Either Kelly or McElroy asked Leone to pull over. When the car stopped, Kelly shot Leone six times in the head. After the shooting, Kelly and McElroy fled the scene in a car driven by fellow Westie William "Billie" Bokun.

Following Leone's murder, Coonan instructed Kelly and McElroy to meet with Local 1909 officials Thomas Ryan and John Potter. At the meeting, Kelly accused Rayan of working with Leone to skim money that belonged to the Westies. Kelly also conveyed Coonan's instruction that henceforth Potter was to take responsibility for the money being paid from the ILA to the Westies. Accordingly, Potter began making weekly payments to Kelly, who shared the proceeds with Coonan, Featherstone, McElroy and Shannon. After Coonan was released from prison in late 1984, he began collecting the money himself and distributing the funds to his fellow Westies. including Kelly.

5. Extortion of Teamaster's Local 817 and the Conspiracy to Murder John "Jackie" Lynch
Prior to 1980, Local 817 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters' (known as the "Theatrical Teamsters") office was located at Ninth Avenue and Forty-Second Street in the heart of Hell's Kitchen. Local 817 subsequently moved its office to Long Island, with no apparent affect on the criminal conduct discussed below. Members of the Theatrical Teamsters generally were employed in various jobs within the entertainment industry, such as transporting movie and television production equipment to filming locations within New York City.

Throughout the 1980s, the Westies extorted jobs and union memberships from the officers of Local 817. On one particular occasion, the president of the Theatrical Teamsters told Coonan and McElroy that the union's membership rolls were full. In response, the two Westies threatened to kill one member of the Local per week until the ranks were sufficiently thinned to accommodate the gang member. On a different occasion, Kelly and McElroy assaulted two unions officials who reneged on a promise to provide union membership cards to certain Westies.

Sometime during 1984, John "Jackie" Lynch, a disgruntled union members and Westies loansharking customer, threatened to Kidnap "Whitely" McAvoy, a Local 817 Official who was under the "Westies' projection. shortly thereafter, while in a bar on the West Side, Lynch attempted to shoot McAvoy. An off-duty police officer, who happened to be on the scene, prevented the shooting and arrested Lynch. Following this event, Kelly, Featherstone and Beattie plotted to kill, Lynch for terrorizing "their people." They decided that Beattie would carry out the killing, and Kelly accordingly provided him with a gun and silencer. The plant was abandoned, however, when Lynch was convicted and sent to prison on charges of criminal possession of a firearm.

6. The Shooting of John O'Connor
In April 1985, Coonan and McElroy learned that the Gambino Family wanted to have John O'Connor, an officer of Carpenters' Local 608, "kneecapped," i.e., injured but not killed. Apparently, O'Connor had caused difficulties on a construction site that was under Gambino Family protection. Coonan and McElroy offered to handle the job for the Gambinos. As a result, Kelly, McElroy and Shannon planned the shooting. In the early morning of May 7, 1986, Kelly waited for O'Connor outside his office building. When O'Connor arrived, Kelly followed him inside and shot him in the back. O'Connor survived the shooting.

7. The Murder of Michael Holly and the Demise of the Westies
The seeds of the Westies' demise were planted on March 25, 1977. On that date, John Bokun, a friend of several Westies, was arguing with Michael Holly, a Hell's Kitchen resident, outside a bar. John Bokun suddenly drew a gun and shot Holly in the chest. An off-duty police officer happened to witness the shooting and attempted to intercede. Bokun responded to these efforts by firing several shots at the officer. The officer returned the gun fire, fatally wounding Bokun. Holly survived the incident. From that day forward, the Westies held Holly responsible for the death of John Bokun. On various occasions thereafter, the Westies plotted to avenge John Bokun's death. The plans were repeatedly aborted, until 1985 when Coonan directed several members of the Westies to kill Holly. Kelly, Shannon and Billie Bokun (John Bokun's brother) planned the killing. On April 25, 1985, at midday, Bokun, wearing a disguise, approached Holly on a crowded street and fired five bullets into his back. Bokun then escaped in a get-away car driven by Shannon.

The following day, Featherstone was arrested and eventually charged with the murder of Michael Holly. Featherstone was linked to the crime by two eyewitnesses and a variety of circumstantial evidence. In the spring of 1986, Featherstone went to trial in state court and was convicted. After the conviction, Featherstone and his wife, Marcelle ("Sissy") Featherstone, continued to insist that Featherstone was innocent and eventually agreed to cooperated with law enforcement authorities' efforts to investigate the Westies and perhaps to expose Holly's actually killers. As a result of Featherstone and his wife's cooperation, the government was able to amass substantial evidence of the Westies' criminal activities and to obtain the underlying indictment. The investigation also conclusively established that Featherstone was not involved in the murder of Holly and, therefore, his state conviction was set aside.

8. The Westies Trials
Eight of the co-defendants named in the indictment, including James Coonan, Edna Coonan, James McElroy, and Billie Bokun, were tried before Judge Knapp and a jury. All but one of the defendants were convicted. The convictions were summarily affirmed by this Court. See United States v. Coonan, 876 F.2d 891 (2d Cir. 1989) (order), cert. denied, ___ U.S. ___, 110 S.Ct. 499, 107 L.Ed.2d 502 (1989).

Because Kelly was a fugitive at the time of the first Westies trial, he was not tried with his co-defendants. Subsequently, Kelly surrendered to authorities and was brought to trial before Judge Knapp and a jury. The jury ultimately returned a guilty verdict on all charges against Kelly, except on the charge of conducting an illegal gambling business. This appeal followed.

'The more bodies you had the more monstrous you looked'
By WILLIAM M. REILLY
Oct. 21, 1987
NEW YORK -- A member of an Irish gang linked to 16 killings testified at the murder-conspiracy trial of eight reputed members that he took part in one of the killings but refused to help dismember the body.

'The more bodies you have the more monstrous you looked,' was the explanation for another of the gang's murder, William 'Billy' Beattie testified.


Beattie, 40, who is serving time for racketeering and murder in the case, testified how he helped rub out Charles 'Ruby' Stein, a loan shark who was owed $50,000 by James 'Jimmy' Coonan, the alleged head of the 'Westies' gang, headquartered on Manhattan's West Side.

The defense denies there was such a gang.

Beattie said Stein was lured to McCoy's Bar, the '596,' in May 1977.



'Danny (Edward 'Danny the shooter' Grillo) came out of the kitchen and pumped some shots into his (Stein's) chest, killing him,' said Beattie.

'He shot him,' added Beattie, who said he was standing at a telephone in a corner between two windows. 'Shot him dead. I closed the blinds and locked the door.'

'Then what?' asked assistant U.S. Attorney David Brodsky.

'Jimmy and Danny hugged each other, embraced,' Beattie replied. 'Then they told me to put a slug in him. I shot him.'

He said he used his own .22 caliber weapon.

The victim's shoes and socks were 'ripped off' and about $1,000 in cash fell out, which was put on the bar and split between Coonan, Grillo, gang member 'Richie Ryan' who had been sitting at a dining room table, and Beattie.

The body was placed on plastic garbage bags and dragged to the rear of the bar, outside the women's rest room where Coonan 'whacked the guy's head off, cut his head off,' said Beattie. 'I turned away.'

Beattie recalled someone said to him, 'You don't have the stomach for that,' as Coonan demonstrated to Ryan how to dismember the body with a 12-inch serrated knife.

Some jurors grimaced and spectators squirmed on the hard benches during the gruesome testimony.

'That's not my bag,' Beattie said he replied. 'I'll kill anybody but I'm not cutting them up.'

Beattie later said the body parts were put into 'six or seven' plastic garbage bags that were loaded into a powder blue Chevrolet. He did not know where it was disposed.

Two days later he said he was told by Coonan that the torso washed up in Rockaway Bay.

'He was furious they found a torso,' said Beattie, explaining that without it 'there never would be an investigation. But he wasn't too worried since the last one seen with him (Stein) was this guy 'Vinny' who died of a heart attack.

'I remember his (Coonan's) exact words: No corups delecti, no investigation,' said Beattie.

In the slaying of Richard 'Ricky' Tassiello in January 1978 in Beattie's 'flophouse' of an apartment, he testified Francis 'Mickey' Featherstone, Coonan's alleged underboss, held onto the victim's wrist as Coonan fired at his head.

'He ran in circles trying to dodge the bullets,' Beattie said of Tassiello, whose body was placed into the bathtub and where Featherstone 'plunged a knife into his chest, into his heart (then) carved him up.'

Beattie said he asked Coonan why he killed Tassiello when he only owed the leader $10,000.

'It was more than money,' Beattie said Coonan explained. 'He was going to meet some people and the more bodies he had the better he looked. The more bodies you had the more monstrous you looked. That's what the people he was meeting with understood.'

The Westies allegedly had connections with the Gambino crime family.

In yet another slaying, Beattie testifed that after Patrick 'Paddy' Dugan was killed in November 1975, his body was dismembered and its 'private parts' put in a milk carton and placed in a refrigerator. Members of the gang later laughingly passed the carton around a bar.

The trial was to resume at 10 a.m. Monday.

Interesting group to say the least. How many of these guys are still alive? And how many in prison? I know the group is all but defunct now but are any of the former members alive? Coonan is in jail still, the others?