The Westies were a
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
-based
Irish American organized crime
Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally th ...
gang, responsible for
racketeering,
drug trafficking, and
contract killing. They were partnered with the
Italian-American Mafia
The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian American criminal society and organized crime group. The organization is often referred to by its mem ...
and operated out of the
Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the ea ...
neighborhood of
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
.
[English, T. J. ''The Westies: Inside New York's Irish Mob'' (1991); St. Martins Press; /.]
According to crime author
T.J. English, "Although never more than twelve to twenty members—depending on who was in or out of jail at any given time—
the Westies became synonymous with the last generation of Irish in the birthplace of the
Irish Mob
The Irish Mob (also known as the Irish mafia or Irish organized crime) is a collective of organized crime syndicates composed of ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia, and have been in ...
."
According to the
NYPD
The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...
Organized Crime Squad and the
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice, t ...
, the Westies were responsible for 60–100 murders between 1968 and 1986.
History
Spillane years
In the early 1960s,
Mickey Spillane
Frank Morrison Spillane (; March 9, 1918July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American crime novelist, whose stories often feature his signature detective character, Mike Hammer. More than 225 million copies of his books have ...
stepped into a power vacuum that had existed in
Hell's Kitchen
Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the ea ...
since gang leaders fled the area in the early 1950s to avoid prosecution. A mobster from Queens, named
Hughie Mulligan, had been running Hell's Kitchen; Spillane, a native, was his apprentice until assuming leadership.
Spillane sent flowers to neighbors in the hospital and provided turkeys to needy families during
Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...
, in addition to running
gambling
Gambling (also known as betting or gaming) is the wagering of something of value ("the stakes") on a random event with the intent of winning something else of value, where instances of strategy are discounted. Gambling thus requires three el ...
enterprises such as
bookmaking
A bookmaker, bookie, or turf accountant is an organization or a person that accepts and pays off bets on sporting and other events at agreed-upon odds.
History
The first bookmaker, Ogden, stood at Newmarket in 1795.
Range of events
Bookm ...
and
policy
Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an orga ...
, accompanied inevitably by
loansharking
A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law.
Description
Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...
. Loansharking led to assault, and Spillane had burglary arrests as well. However, among all his criminal activities, the most audacious was his "snatch" racket (kidnapping and holding local businessmen and members of other crime organizations for ransom).
He was able to add to his neighborhood prominence by marrying Maureen McManus, a daughter of the prestigious McManus family which had run the Midtown Democratic Club since 1905. The union of political power with criminal activity enhanced the gang's ability to control union jobs and labor racketeering, moving away from the declining waterfront and more strongly into construction jobs and service work at the
New York Coliseum
The New York Coliseum was a convention center that stood at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, New York City, from 1956 to 2000. It was designed by architects Leon Levy and Lionel Levy in a modified International Style, and included both a low bui ...
,
Madison Square Garden, and later the
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
Irish–Italian war of the 1970s
In the 1970s, the Irish mob saw an increased threat from the Italian Mafia as the
Genovese crime family
The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...
sought control over the soon to be built
Jacob K. Javits Convention Center. Since the convention center was located in Spillane's Hell's Kitchen neighborhood, Spillane refused to allow any involvement by the Italians. Although the Italian gangsters greatly outnumbered the Irish mob, Spillane was successful in keeping control of the convention center and Hell's Kitchen. The Italians, frustrated and embarrassed, responded by hiring a rogue Irish-American hitman named
Joseph "Mad Dog" Sullivan to assassinate
Tom Devaney,
Eddie "the Butcher" Cummiskey, and
Tom "the Greek" Kapatos, three of Spillane's top lieutenants.
In 1977, Spillane was assassinated by
Roy DeMeo in a hit set up by
Jimmy Coonan, who wanted to take over from Spillane. Coonan recruited the infamous DeMeo after a deal was struck between the two. By rubbing out Spillane, DeMeo's crew would then do business with his successor. DeMeo initially came into contact with Coonan after the latter had murdered and dismembered loan shark Ruby Stein.
Spillane–Coonan wars
The war began when an 18-year old Coonan swore revenge against Spillane, following the Spillane-initiated kidnapping and pistol whipping of Coonan's father. In 1966, Coonan fired a machine gun at Spillane and his associates from atop a Hell's Kitchen tenement building. Although Coonan wounded no one, Spillane understood that the younger hoodlum was not to be taken lightly. Spillane went to Coonan's father, slapped him around and told him to get his son under control. Coonan was imprisoned for a short period for murder and kidnapping charges that were pleaded down to Class C Manslaughter. He was released in late 1971 and continued his war with the Westside Gang.
Trouble with the Genovese family
Hell's Kitchen was no longer safe for Spillane and his family, and he moved to the then-Irish working-class neighborhood of
Woodside, Queens
Woodside is a residential and commercial neighborhood in the western portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. It is bordered on the south by Maspeth, on the north by Astoria, on the west by Sunnyside, and on the east by Elmhurst, ...
. With Spillane gone, his control of the rackets in Hell's Kitchen began to deteriorate; Coonan became the neighborhood's boss, although some still viewed Spillane as boss. On the New York
Commission, Spillane was still viewed as the
Irish Mob
The Irish Mob (also known as the Irish mafia or Irish organized crime) is a collective of organized crime syndicates composed of ethnic Irish members which operate primarily in Ireland, the United States, Canada and Australia, and have been in ...
boss on the Westside, putting the Javits Convention Center construction site under his control.
Anthony Salerno
Anthony "Fat Tony" Salerno (August 15, 1911 – July 27, 1992) was an American mobster who served as underboss and front boss of the Genovese crime family in New York City from 1981 until his conviction in 1986.
Early life
Salerno was born and ...
, a high-ranking member of the
Genovese crime family
The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...
, wanted the center for himself and reached an agreement with Jimmy Coonan. If Coonan became boss, Salerno would run the construction site and give Coonan a taste of the proceeds.
Salerno then reached out to Buffalo Crime Family associate and freelance
hitman
Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may ...
, Joseph Sullivan, to eliminate the three main Spillane supporters in Hell's Kitchen,
Tom Devaney,
Tom Kapatos, and
Edward Cummiskey. Cummiskey had apparently switched sides to the Coonan camp after they both killed and dismembered Patrick "Paddy" Dugan for killing Cummiskey's best friend,
but Salerno and Sullivan were not aware of the switch. Devaney and Cummiskey were killed in late 1976, and Kapatos was killed in January 1977. Spillane was out of the picture, and Coonan was the undisputed boss of Hell's Kitchen. It was felt that Spillane still had to die.
Roy DeMeo, a
Gambino crime family soldier, murdered Spillane as a favor to Coonan.
Mickey Featherstone stood trial for the murder and was found not guilty.
Coonan and Featherstone
During the late 1970s, Coonan tightened the alliance between the Westies and the Gambinos, then run by
Paul Castellano
Constantino Paul Castellano (; June 26, 1915 – December 16, 1985), was an American crime boss who succeeded Carlo Gambino as head of the Gambino crime family. Castellano was killed in an unsanctioned hit on December 16, 1985.
Early life
Cast ...
. Coonan's main contact was Roy DeMeo. In 1979 both Coonan and Featherstone were acquitted of the murder of a bartender, Harold Whitehead. Another Westie (and top enforcer),
James McElroy, was acquitted of the murder of a
Teamster
A teamster is the American term for a truck driver or a person who drives teams of draft animals. Further, the term often refers to a member of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a labor union in the United States and Canada.
Origi ...
in 1980.
Although 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 West Side. After DeMeo himself was murdered, Coonan's Gambino connection became
Daniel Marino, a capo from Brooklyn. Coonan eventually interacted directly with
John Gotti, who took over the Gambinos after Castellano's murder in December 1985. Gotti appointed
Joe Watts as the liaison to the Westies. From time to time, the Westies worked for the Gambinos as a contract killer squad.
Featherstone was convicted of murder in early 1986 and began cooperating with the government in hopes of getting the conviction overturned, and because he believed the rest of the Westies had framed him for the murder. 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 told the presiding judge that post-conviction investigation had revealed that Featherstone was innocent. The judge overturned the verdict. At that point the information provided by the Featherstones resulted in the arrest of Coonan and several other Westies on state charges of murder and other crimes.
Shortly afterward, federal prosecutor
Rudolph Giuliani announced a devastating
RICO
The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act is a United States federal law that provides for extended criminal penalties and a civil cause of action for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization.
RICO was en ...
indictment against Coonan and others for criminal activities going back twenty years. Featherstone testified in open court for four weeks in the trial that began in September 1987 and concluded with major convictions in 1988. Coonan was sentenced to sixty years in prison on assorted charges. Other leading gang members were also sentenced to long prison terms, including McElroy, who was sentenced to 60 years, and Richard "Mugsy" Ritter, a career criminal sentenced to 40 years on
loan-sharking
A loan shark is a person who offers loans at extremely high interest rates, has strict terms of collection upon failure, and generally operates outside the law.
Description
Because loan sharks operate mostly illegally, they cannot reasonably ...
and drug related charges.
The Yugo era
By the early 1990s, the old demographic of the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood was disappearing. The
blue-collar
A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...
Irish-American community was being displaced by a more affluent and ethnically diverse group of residents. With this change came a decrease in street crime and a change in leadership.
Bosko Radonjich, an American-Serbian nationalist and onetime anti-communist started his Westies affiliation as a low-level associate of Jimmy Coonan in 1983. He became the boss of the Westies when Kelly went on the lam and was instrumental in the "fixing" of John Gotti's 1986 racketeering trial.
["Bosko Radonjich, former John Gotti henchman & ex-Westies crime boss known as 'Yugo', dies in Belgrade"](_blank)
nydailynews.com; accessed December 8, 2015.
Around 1992, Radonjich fled the country to avoid
jury tampering
Jury tampering is the crime of unduly attempting to influence the composition and/or decisions of a jury during the course of a trial. The means by which this crime could be perpetrated can include attempting to discredit potential jurors to ensur ...
charges. He was eventually arrested by
U.S. Customs officials during a stopover in Miami, Florida, in 1999. However, Radonjich was released when the main witness in the case,
Sammy Gravano
Salvatore "Sammy the Bull" Gravano (born March 12, 1945) is an American former mobster who became underboss of the Gambino crime family. Gravano played a major role in prosecuting John Gotti, the crime family's boss, by agreeing to testify as a ...
, was deemed unreliable. Radonjich returned to his native Serbia where he operated a casino and nightclub until he died in 2011 from poor health.
In 1992, a man named Brian Bentley was identified as a member of the Westies and was implicated in a burglary ring responsible for victimizing over 1,000 businesses throughout Manhattan. When Michael G. Cherkasky, chief of the investigations division of the district attorney's office, was asked how much still remained of the Westies, he said: "Too much," and that "it's not the end" of the gang."
21st Century
For nearly two decades following the end of the "Yugo Era", there was little mention of the activities or even continued existence of The Westies. But in 2012, the ''
New York Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established ...
'' reported that the Westies resurfaced under the leadership of John Bokun, who was caught, along with accomplices, smuggling marijuana into the US. ''The New York Times'' noted that, aside from being the nephew of former Westies, Bokun had no connection to any group using that name.
However, "The Westies" is a title created by members of the press in the mid 1980s to refer to the gang; as pointed out by English, at no point did members of "The Westies" ever adopt the label or refer to themselves as such.
See also
*
Gopher Gang
*
Irish Americans in New York City
The Irish community is one of New York City's major and important ethnic groups, and has been a significant proportion of the city's population since the waves of immigration in the late 19th century.
As a result of the Great Famine in Ireland ...
References
Further reading
*
{{Organized crime groups in America, state=collapsed
Organizations established in the 1960s
1960s establishments in New York City
Organizations disestablished in 1988
1988 disestablishments in New York (state)
Irish-American organized crime groups
Former gangs in New York City
Irish-American culture in New York City
Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan