During his time as boss of the Westies, they gained a reputation as a vicious crew of murderers and came to dominate the drug, extortion, numbers, loansharking and counterfeiting rackets in the area. Coonan forged a strong alliance with the Gambino crime family in the late 70s, and Jimmy Coonan and his gang worked for the Gambino Crime Family as a large hit-squad and an enforcement squad, for almost a decade. Due to his strong alliance with the Gambino crime family it was rapidly Strengthening his own power. He is currently incarcerated after being sentenced to 75 years in the late 1980s.