Man tied to West End Gang charged with possession of firearm, drug trafficking

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A person identified to police previously as an enforcer for the West Finish Gang faces a drug trafficking cost on the Montreal courthouse in addition to prices alleging he possessed a firearm when he was arrested.

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Lawrence “Larry” Cooney, 53, of Verdun, was scheduled to have a bail listening to on Tuesday, however defence lawyer Dominique Shoofey requested Quebec Court docket Decide Salvatore Mascia for a delay.

“Mr. Cooney has a previous that I would like to guage,” Shoofey advised Mascia whereas saying he has not determined whether or not he’ll request a bail listening to. The decide agreed to hold over Cooney’s case to Sept. 1.

Cooney has been detained since he was arrested by the Montreal police on July 5 and was charged the next day with possession of a drug with the intent to visitors, possession of a restricted or prohibited firearm, and the improper storage of a firearm.

He was additionally charged with possessing a firearm whereas he was prohibited from doing so. In 2011, a decide issued an order prohibiting Cooney from possessing a firearm for the remainder of his life. The order was a part of a sentence obtained after Cooney pleaded responsible to 6 counts of assault.

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Cooney’s felony previous features a three-year jail sentence in 2013 after he pleaded responsible to extortion and assault inflicting bodily hurt. On April 12, 2012, a compulsive gambler was known as to a bar in LaSalle, identified on the time for being a West Finish Gang hangout, to debate a $20,000 poker debt he owed to a different man. When he arrived, he was invited into the kitchen, the place he was crushed by Cooney and two different males who kicked and punched him.

Cooney used a wood meat tenderizer to ship extreme blows to the person’s again, breaking three of his ribs. He additionally threatened to pour boiling oil on the sufferer.

Through the Nineties, Cooney was a bouncer on the Do Drop In, a bar in Pointe-St-Charles that police believed was managed by the West Finish Gang. Photographs of males who had turned informant on the West Finish Gang held on the bar’s partitions.

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In 2006, the Régie des Alcools revoked the bar’s liquor licence, partially as a result of the Montreal police believed Cooney was concerned in a violent battle to manage drug trafficking in Pointe-St-Charles. The police made the request to close down the bar after somebody tried to kill Cooney on April 1, 2005, close to the Do Drop In. Cooney was wounded and Alexandre Desmarais, one other one that frequented the bar, was killed.

One other try was made on Cooney’s life throughout June 2003 in Châteauguay.

pcherry@postmedia.com