# United States v. Coonan, 938 F.2d 1553 (2d Cir. 1991): the appeal of Kevin Kelly

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/courtlistener-us-v-coonan-938-f2d-1553/

Second Circuit opinion of July 16, 1991 affirming Kevin Kelly's racketeering and related convictions. Its background recites the trial evidence about the "Westies," a group the court places in the Hell's Kitchen section of Manhattan.

United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, argued February 4, 1991 and decided July 16, 1991, before Circuit Judges Newman and Altimari and District Judge Conboy. Kevin Kelly and nine co-defendants were charged in a seventeen-count indictment with racketeering and 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." Kelly had been a fugitive at the time of the first trial. He was tried separately before Judge Whitman Knapp, convicted after a five-week trial and sentenced to fifty years. The court affirms on all counts.

The background section sets out "facts and inferences" that "can reasonably be drawn from the evidence adduced at trial." It says that "The Westies were formed in the mid-1960s when James Coonan and his confederates attempted to wrest control of criminal activity in Hell's Kitchen from the then predominant gang leader, Michael "Mickey" Spillane," and that "By the mid-1970s, Francis "Mickey" Featherstone had become Coonan's righthand man and the Westies' second-in-command." It lists the group's activities as loansharking, narcotics dealing, extortion of local labor unions and control of the West Side piers. It also states that in the late 1970s the group "entered into an alliance with the Gambino Organized Crime Family." It goes on to recite the evidence about the 1984 killing of Vincent Leone, an officer of International Longshoremen's Association Local 1909, and the 1985 killing of Michael Holly.

In its discussion the court says that Featherstone and Billie Beattie, testifying for the Government, described the group, and that "Coonan was identified as the organization's leader and Featherstone as its second-in-command." These sentences give the court's account of testimony that the jury credited. They are not a separate finding of rank, and this archive does not copy them onto any family chart. The court also records that Kelly had been acquitted in state court of the Holly murder, and it holds that charging the same killing as a predicate act in the federal case did not violate the double jeopardy clause.

The opinion notes that eight of the co-defendants, including James Coonan, were tried earlier before Judge Knapp and that "All but one of the defendants were convicted." That judgment was summarily affirmed by an order, 876 F.2d 891 (2d Cir. 1989), which this archive has not read.

## Sources

- CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/564968/united-states-v-coonan/
- Second CourtListener entry for the same decision (lead opinion and Judge Newman's concurrence): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/8999180/united-states-v-coonan/