Title: Westies - Wikipedia
Headings: Westies
Westies
Contents
History
Spillane years
Irish–Italian war of the 1970s
Spillane–Coonan wars
Trouble with the Genovese family
Coonan and Featherstone
The Yugo era
See also
References
Further reading

Content: 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.