Mickey Featherstone
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Francis "Mickey" Featherstone (born c. 1947) was a Irish American mobster and member of the Westies, an organized crime gang from Hells Kitchen, Manhattan in New York City. Following his arrest for murder in 1978, he subsequently became an informant.
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[edit] Early life
He served in the Vietnam War, and shortly after his return to the USA in 1968, he joined up with the Westies and became close friends with fellow mobster James Coonan. Featherstone was arrested for murder in the early 1970s but got off with an insanity plea supposedly relating to his experiences in the Vietnam War.
[edit] Featherstone & the Westies
Coonan became the boss of the Westies in 1978 after driving his predecessor, Mickey Spillane out of the neighborhood. Spillane was later murdered in Brooklyn by soldiers of Gambino captain Roy Demeo, who wished to build an alliance with Coonan. Featherstone was Coonan's right-hand man and under their reign the trigger-happy Westies committed many murders in addition to loan-sharking, drug trafficking and protection rackets. They also forged an alliance with the Gambino Family. Coonan is believed to have murdered Jewish loanshark Ruby Stein in order to clear various debts members of the Westies had with him. The murder of Stein, who had been the Gambino family's man in Hell's Kitchen, lead the Family's Boss, Paul Castellano, to reign in the Westies by transforming Coonan and Featherstone into close associates of the Family.
[edit] Downfall
Featherstone and Coonan were both tried for murder in 1979 but were acquitted. Featherstone was later imprisoned on a counterfeiting rap. After being released from prison, Featherstone had a falling out with Jimmy Coonan after Coonan refused to lend Featherstone money. Featherstone proceeded to build a crew of his own and carefully prepared to murder Coonan so that he could take over the neighborhood rackets.
Featherstone was arrested and charged with a murder committed by Coonan's crew in 1986. He initially tried to use his claim of suffering from post traumatic stress related to his experiences in Vietnam as a defense, but when it was revealed that he only had a noncombat role during the war, Featherstone was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Believing that Coonan had deliberately framed him, Featherstone flipped and became an informant. He testified against fellow Westies such as Coonan, and later at the trial of John Gotti. This was a landmark betrayal in the history of New York crime, and led to the downfall of the Westies as an organized crime entity. The defense lawyers in the respective trials unsuccessfully tried to have Featherstone's testimony invalidated because he had previously been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Featherstone is currently in the Witness Protection Program with his wife and four children. Featherstone reportedly took care of the kids as a "house husband" during the early years of his family's relocation. Unlike more prominent Federal witnesses such as Sammy Gravano and Henry Hill (mobster), he has not had any conflicts with the law, a fact which he credits to his removal from Hell's Kitchen.
[edit] See also
Other notable informants during the 1970s and 80s include:
[edit] Further reading
- Davis, John H. Mafia Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the Gambino Crime Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.
[edit] References
- English, T.J. The Westies. St. Martin's Paperbacks, 1991. ISBN 0-312-92429-1
- English, T.J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-06-059003-3
