Joey Buttafuoco

Joey Buttafuoco
Joey Buttafuoco
Born Joseph A. Buttafuoco
(1956-03-11) March 11, 1956
Massapequa, New York, U.S.
Occupation Auto body shop owner
Spouse(s) Mary Jo Buttafuoco (div. 2003)

Joseph A. Buttafuoco (born March 11, 1956) is an auto body shop owner from Long Island and a global popular culture icon. He is best known for having a sexual relationship with a minor, Amy Fisher, who subsequently shot his wife, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, in the face. Tabloid news coverage labelled Fisher the "Long Island Lolita".[1]

Buttafuoco later pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape and served four months in jail.[2]

Shooting incident

On May 19, 1992, Amy Fisher went to Joey Buttafuoco’s house and informed his wife, Mary Jo Buttafuoco about his infidelity. Amy Fisher shot Mary Jo Buttafuoco in the right side of the face.[1] Fisher had come to the Buttafuocos' house and confronted Mary Jo Buttafuoco about Joey Buttafuoco, with whom she had been having a sexual relationship since July 1991 after Fisher brought her vehicle to Buttafuoco's auto body shop in Baldwin, Nassau County, New York.[1]

When Mary Jo answered the door, Fisher—posing as her own (fictitious) sister Ann Marie—offered, as proof of the affair, a T-shirt that Joey had given her with the logo of his auto body shop on it. The front porch confrontation escalated, and when Mary Jo demanded that Fisher leave and turned to go into the house and call Joey, Fisher shot her in the face with a .25 caliber semiautomatic pistol. Once Mary Jo regained consciousness, she identified Fisher as her assailant.[1]

The investigation of the shooting and the subsequent court cases involved a series of conflicting claims and received significant news coverage in both mainstream news outlets and tabloids.[3]

Buttafuoco's lawyer maintained that Buttafuoco was never involved with Fisher and Fisher had invented the affair, while Fisher's lawyer portrayed Fisher as a victim whom Buttafuoco manipulated into the shooting.[4]

After Fisher's assault conviction, Buttafuoco was indicted on 19 counts of statutory rape, sodomy, and endangering the welfare of a child. He initially pleaded not guilty.[5] He later changed his plea to guilty, admitting he had sex with Fisher when she was 16 and that he had known her age at the time.[6] He was sentenced to six months' jail time and was released after serving four months and nine days of the sentence.[7]

After his release from prison, Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco moved to California, where Mary Jo filed divorce papers in Ventura County Superior Court on February 3, 2003.[8]

Unrelated charges

Buttafuoco has been charged with crimes on several occasions since the 1992 shooting incident:

  • In 1995, he pleaded no contest to a solicitation-of-prostitution charge and was fined and placed on probation for two years.[9]
  • In 2004, he was sentenced to a year in jail and five years of probation after pleading guilty to auto insurance fraud. As part of the sentence, he is prohibited from working in the auto body industry in California for the rest of his life.[10]
  • In August 2005, he was charged with illegal possession of ammunition. As a convicted felon, he is legally not permitted to own ammunition. Probation officers found the ammunition during a search of his home. He pleaded no contest and began serving his sentence on January 8, 2007.[11] He was released on April 28, 2007.[12]

Media appearances

The significant coverage of the shooting incident made Buttafuoco a minor celebrity. During Fisher's trial, Buttafuoco appeared frequently on mainstream and tabloid news programs and talk shows and gave multiple interviews to all forms of media.[4] David Letterman, in his last year of hosting Late Night with David Letterman, discussed the incident so often that Buttafuoco's name was a recurring punchline,[13] while Saturday Night Live parodied the case in multiple sketches.[14]

In 2002, Buttafuoco participated in the Fox Network's Celebrity Boxing, originally slated to oppose John Wayne Bobbitt, who dropped out owing to being arrested for domestic abuse. Bobbitt was replaced by female pro wrestler Joanie "Chyna" Laurer.[15] Buttafuoco, despite being booed, won the fight in a majority decision (29–28, 29–27, 28–28).[16]

In 2006, he and Fisher were reunited at the Lingerie Bowl for the coin toss.[17] In a story reported in the New York Post, reality show producer David Krieff suggested that Buttafuoco and Fisher were then "dating" again, although this was not supported by any direct statements from either Buttafuoco or Fisher.[18]

On May 23, 2007, Mary Jo Buttafuocco appeared on CNN's Larry King Live program to discuss the recent reunion of her ex-husband and the former "Long Island Lolita."[19] At the time, Buttafuoco's second wife, Evanka, had recently filed for divorce, but withdrew her divorce petition on June 22, 2007.[20]

Joey Buttafuoco appeared in an episode of Judge Pirro, successfully suing an adult film actress for failure to pay an auto body bill.

Sixteen years after the incident, Mary Jo Buttafuoco wrote a book telling her story, Getting It Through My Thick Skull: Why I Stayed, What I Learned, and What Millions of People Involved with Sociopaths Need to Know. She was inspired to write the book after her son referred to her ex-husband as a sociopath. Not knowing what the word meant, she looked it up and had a realization leading to her going public with her story.

TV and film career

Buttafuoco made his film debut as a cab driver in Cul-de-Sac (video title: Better Than Ever). He subsequently appeared in The Underground Comedy Movie, Perversions of Science, Mafia Movie Madness, Skin Walker, Finding Forrester and Operation Repo: The Movie.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Bell, Rachael. "Amy Fisher". Crimelibrary. Archived from the original on May 21, 2014. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  2. ↑ "Joey Buttafuoco-Celebrity Mug Shot". Charles Montaldo. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  3. ↑ Schemo, Diana Jean (September 24, 1992). "Amy Fischer Pleads Guilty to Assault". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  4. 1 2 Barbanel, Josh (September 27, 1992). "A Morality Tale In Court and Tabloid". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  5. ↑ McQuiston, John T. (April 16, 1993). "Buttafuoco Enters Plea Of Not Guilty". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  6. ↑ "Buttafuoco Alters Story, Pleads Guilty to Third-Degree Rape". Los Angeles Times. October 6, 1993. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  7. ↑ "Buttafuoco Is Released After 4 Months in Jail". Los Angeles Times. March 24, 1994. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  8. ↑ "Joey Buttafuco, Wife Getting Divorced". USA Today. May 6, 2003. Retrieved November 19, 2012.
  9. ↑ "CHRONICLE". Nadine Brozan. July 8, 1995. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  10. ↑ Sciaudone, Christiana (March 23, 2004). "Buttafuoco Sentenced to 1 Year in Jail". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  11. ↑ "Joey B. gets a break". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2006-11-14. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
  12. ↑ "Joey Buttafuoco Ends Calif. Jail Term". AP/sfgate.com. Archived from the original on 2007-11-02. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  13. ↑ Barry, Dan (May 16, 1999). "The Nation: No Way Out; Still Gawking After All These Years". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  14. ↑ Lorraine Delia Kenny, Daughters of Suburbia: Growing Up White, Middle Class, and Female (Rutgers University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-8135-2853-4)
  15. ↑ "Celeb Boxing: Bobbitt Out, Chyna In". Josh Grossberg. Archived from the original on 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  16. ↑ "Fox's dull 'Celebrity Boxing' far from being a knockout". Tim Cuprisin. Archived from the original on 2006-07-10. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  17. ↑ "Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher Reunion Will Be a Coin-Tosser at The Lingerie Bowl". SOURCE Horizon Productions. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  18. ↑ Fanelli, James; Li, David K. (May 13, 2007). "Amy and Joey set date for love". New York Post.
  19. ↑ "CNN Larry King Live: What Happened On "The View" Today?/Mary Jo Speaks Out". CNN. May 23, 2007.
  20. ↑ Crowley, Kieran (June 22, 2007). "Buttafuoco wife nixes divorce bid". New York Post. Retrieved January 4, 2008.

I happen to know of a younger man who has the unfortunate fate of being named "Joey Buttafuoco" at birth. Odd coincidence that I grew up in Bergen County NJ up the block from David Fisher...who married his wife (Amy) about 35 +/- years ago. I was in a store in Closter, NJ around 2000-1 and Amy just happened to be cashiering at the store...AND my friend, Joey, happened to be with me. I introduced them to each other. Odd moment that!

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