# United States v. Bokun, 73 F.3d 8 (2d Cir. 1995): the sentence of a Westies defendant

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/courtlistener-us-v-bokun-73-f3d-8/

Second Circuit opinion of December 27, 1995 reversing a reduction of William Bokun's sentence under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and reinstating his thirty-five-year term. Its background summarizes the Westies prosecution and the sentences imposed in 1988.

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, argued September 12, 1995 and decided December 27, 1995. A jury convicted William Bokun on February 24, 1988 of participating and conspiring to participate in a racketeering enterprise and of conspiring to distribute cocaine. Judge Whitman Knapp sentenced him on May 11, 1988 to fifty years, reduced the term to thirty-five years in 1991, and in December 1994 cut it again to twenty-five years under 28 U.S.C. § 2255 after reducing Kevin Kelly's sentence. The Second Circuit holds that § 2255 gave the court no power to make that change and orders the thirty-five-year sentence reinstated.

The background states that on September 17, 1987 Bokun and nine codefendants "were indicted in the Southern District for various crimes committed as members of the Westies, an organized crime group led by James Coonan that had terrorized the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan since the mid-1960s." It says the Government called more than seventy witnesses and introduced over three hundred and fifty exhibits during a four-month trial. Bokun was named in three predicate acts: the murder of Vincent Leone, the murder of Michael Holly, and a cocaine conspiracy. The jury found two of them proven, the Holly murder and the cocaine conspiracy. It found that his involvement in the Leone murder had not been proven. The opinion's account of the Leone killing relies in part on "the testimony of Francis "Mickey" Featherstone, a former member of the Westies."

The court also lists the other sentences Judge Knapp imposed in 1988: "James Coonan, the leader of the Westies, was sentenced to seventy-five years' imprisonment and a fine of one million dollars," and James McElroy received sixty years. It records that Kelly and Kenneth Shannon surrendered in August 1988, that Shannon pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge and was sentenced to twenty years, and that Kelly was convicted on November 16, 1989 and sentenced to fifty years, a term later reduced to forty.

The opinion prints the corner where Holly was shot. This archive does not repeat details of the defendants' families or homes that the opinion mentions in passing.

## Sources

- CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/710271/united-states-v-william-bokun/