James Michael Coonan (born December 21, 1946), nicknamed "Jimmy C", is an Irish-American mobster and racketeer from Manhattan,

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

who, from approximately 1977 to 1988, served as the boss of the

Westies The Westies were a New York City-based Irish American organized crime gang, responsible for racketeering, drug trafficking, and contract killing. They were partnered with the Italian-American Mafia and operated out of the Hell's Kitchen neighb ...

gang, an Irish mob group based in Hell's Kitchen. Coonan was incarcerated and began serving a 75-year prison term in 1988.

Biography

James Coonan was born on December 21, 1946 into a middle class Irish-American family in the Hell's Kitchen area of Manhattan, the second of four children of John Coonan, an accountant who ran a tax office on West 50th Street, and his wife Anna, who was of partial German descent and who worked at John Coonan's office. He was raised in a five-room

walk-up apartment An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are man ...

on West 49th Street. By his teenage years, Coonan stood five feet, seven inches tall and had a stocky build, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. An amateur boxer and street fighter, he dropped out of school aged seventeen and embarked on a career in organized crime. When Coonan was a young man, his father John was kidnapped, pistol-whipped and severely beaten by Mickey Spillane, a well-known mobster who frequently employed the kidnap-for-ransom racket of local merchants to their families. Author T.J. English has credited this event in several books as Coonan's motivating factor in the takeover of the

. Coonan was the bodyguard/apprentice of loan shark Charles (Ruby) Stein according to '' The New York Times'' article that alleged he was "known and feared on the West Side as a murderer and kidnapper". Coonan wanted more, and several West Side neighborhood thugs gathered around him, including Francis "Mickey" Featherstone. By 1976, Coonan and Featherstone were engaged in taking over Spillane's territory, culminating in the 1977 shooting of Spillane, for which Featherstone was arrested and acquitted, and the death of Stein. 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. 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. 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. Coonan was first eligible for parole in 1998. He and his wife Edna (b.1942; Julia Edna Crotty) lived in Hazlet and

Keansburg, New Jersey Keansburg (, Felzenberg, Alvin''Governor Tom Kean: From the New Jersey Statehouse to the 9-11 Commission'' p. 5. Rutgers University Press, 2006. . Accessed July 25, 2012. "In 1884, after congressman and future U.S. senator John Kean, Tom Kean's ...

, before his incarceration.Lubasch, Arnold H
"Prosecutor Says Gang Terrorized Hell's Kitchen"
'' The New York Times'', October 20, 1987. Accessed August 29, 2013. "The Coonans live in Hazlet, N.J."

Notes

Bibliography

* * *

References

External links

Inmate Locator - James Coonan
Federal Bureau of Prisons website
James and Edna Coonan's 1989 appeal brief
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coonan, James 1946 births Living people 20th-century American criminals American male criminals American gangsters of Irish descent American gangsters of German descent American crime bosses American people convicted of murder People convicted of racketeering People from Hazlet, New Jersey People from Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan People from Keansburg, New Jersey People convicted of murder by the United States federal government Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government Criminals from Manhattan Gangsters from New York City Gambino crime family Westies (New York gang)