Joey Buttafuoco

Joseph A. Buttafuoco (born March 11, 1956) is an auto body shop owner from Long Island who had 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]

Joey Buttafuoco
Joey Buttafuoco
Born
Joseph A. Buttafuoco

(1956-03-11) March 11, 1956
Massapequa, New York, U.S.
OccupationAuto body shop owner
Spouse(s)Mary Jo Buttafuoco (div. 2003)

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

Early life

Buttafuoco graduated from Massapequa High School.[3]

Shooting incident

On May 19, 1992, Amy 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.[4]

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.[5]

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.[6] 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.[7] He was sentenced to six months' jail time and was released after serving four months and nine days of the sentence.[8]

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.[9]

Unrelated charges

Buttafuoco has been convicted of crimes 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.[10]
  • 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.[11]
  • In August 2005, he was charged with illegal possession of ammunition. 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.[12] He was released on April 28, 2007.[13]

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.[5] 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,[14] while Saturday Night Live parodied the case in multiple sketches.[15]

In 2002, Buttafuoco participated in Celebrity Boxing, originally slated to oppose John Wayne Bobbitt, who dropped out after being arrested for domestic abuse. Bobbitt was replaced by female pro wrestler Joanie "Chyna" Laurer.[16] Buttafuoco, despite being booed, won the fight in a majority decision (29–28, 29–27, 28–28).[17]

In 2006, he and Fisher were reunited at the Lingerie Bowl for the coin toss.[18]

On May 23, 2007, Mary Jo Buttafuocco appeared on Larry King Live 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.

References
  1. 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. Ketcham, Diane. "ABOUT LONG ISLAND; At the Repository of High School Memories", The New York Times, February 12, 1995. Accessed January 3, 2017. "Copies of The Sachem, as the Massapequa book is called, are scattered throughout the collection. A long-haired Jerry Seinfeld pops out of the pages of 1972. In '74, Mr. Buttafuoco and his wife graduated. There is just one comment under Mr. Buttafuoco's picture. It says, 'I love Mary Jo.' Other graduates of the Massapequa schools include the Baldwin brothers, Alexander, '76, class president; Dan, '79; Billy, '81, and Steven, '84. In Ms. Hahn's Class of '77 were also Brian Setzer of the Stray Cats, Tim Van Patten, an actor and Brian Baldinger, a professional football player."
  4. Schemo, Diana Jean (September 24, 1992). "Amy Fischer Pleads Guilty to Assault". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  5. Barbanel, Josh (September 27, 1992). "A Morality Tale In Court and Tabloid". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  6. McQuiston, John T. (April 16, 1993). "Buttafuoco Enters Plea Of Not Guilty". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  7. "Buttafuoco Alters Story, Pleads Guilty to Third-Degree Rape". Los Angeles Times. October 6, 1993. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  8. "Buttafuoco Is Released After 4 Months in Jail". Los Angeles Times. March 24, 1994. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  9. "Joey Buttafuco, Wife Getting Divorced". USA Today. May 6, 2003. Retrieved November 19, 2012.
  10. "CHRONICLE". Nadine Brozan. July 8, 1995. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  11. Sciaudone, Christiana (March 23, 2004). "Buttafuoco Sentenced to 1 Year in Jail". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  12. "Joey B. gets a break". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 2006-11-14. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
  13. "Joey Buttafuoco Ends Calif. Jail Term". AP/sfgate.com. Archived from the original on 2007-11-02. Retrieved 2007-05-09.
  14. Barry, Dan (May 16, 1999). "The Nation: No Way Out; Still Gawking After All These Years". New York Times. Retrieved May 21, 2014.
  15. Lorraine Delia Kenny, Daughters of Suburbia: Growing Up White, Middle Class, and Female (Rutgers University Press, 2000; ISBN 0-8135-2853-4)
  16. "Celeb Boxing: Bobbitt Out, Chyna In". Josh Grossberg. Archived from the original on 2006-08-18. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  17. "Fox's dull 'Celebrity Boxing' far from being a knockout". Tim Cuprisin. Archived from the original on 2006-07-10. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  18. "Joey Buttafuoco and Amy Fisher Reunion Will Be a Coin-Tosser at The Lingerie Bowl". SOURCE Horizon Productions. Retrieved 2006-07-24.
  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.
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