Prison for gang enforcer
Man convicted over beating of gambler
A man known to police in the past as an enforcer for the West End Gang has been sentenced to a three-year prison term for beating a man with a meat tenderizer to collect on a gambling debt.
Lawrence (Larry) Cooney, 44, received the sentence this week after pleading guilty to assault causing bodily harm and extortion. Cooney has been known in the past to associate with members of the West End Gang and used to stand guard outside one its hangouts, a bar on Wellington St. in Point-St-Charles before its liquor permit was revoked several years ago. He has also been the victim of two attempted murders, including one that resulted in the April 1, 2005, death of Alexandre Desmarais, a young man who was with Cooney when someone opened fire on both men while they were walking past a community centre in Point-St-Charles.
Very little of Cooney’s past was mentioned when he entered the guilty plea at the Montreal courthouse before Quebec Court Judge Marie-Josée Di Lallo.
Cooney’s lawyer, Dominique Shoofey, read a statement of facts agreed upon by both him and prosecutor Patrick Dostaler.
On April 12, 2012, the victim, a compulsive gambler, was called to the Haraiki bar in LaSalle to discuss a $20,000 debt he owed to another man from poker games. When the victim arrived, he was invited into the kitchen where he was beaten by Cooney and two men who kicked and punched him.
Cooney used a wooden meat tenderizer to deliver severe blows to the man’s back, breaking three of his ribs. The attack might have gone unreported but the gambler was pulled over by police because he drove erratically as he left the bar. The man, who could barely stand when he was pulled over, told the police that besides the beating, Cooney and the others threatened to pour boiling oil on him.
Cooney also pleaded guilty to being in breach of court orders by being inside the Haraiki Bar, also a known hangout for members of the West End Gang, and for being in the presence of Jeffrey George Tritsis, 31, a South Shore resident while both were out on bail for an extortion they committed in 2011.
Di Lallo agreed to a joint recommendation that Cooney be sentenced to the three-year prison term. With the time he spent behind bars awaiting the outcome of the case factored in, he was left with 27 months to serve. Because he was convicted of a violent crime, Di Lallo also ordered that Cooney, who has also been convicted of trafficking in cocaine, surrender a sample of his DNA. Ryan James Dellazizzo, 34, of Beloeil, a co-accused in the extortion case, is scheduled to have a trial in December 2014.
Cooney was wounded by gunfire when Desmarais was killed in 2005. At the time, homicide investigators suspected Cooney was the intended target and that Desmarais was killed because he happened to be standing near his friend.
pcherry@montrealgazette.com