Estrangement from his wife and kids. Multiple arrests.
A failed acting career. These are just a few of Joey Buttafuoco's problems
since his affair with Amy Fisher in the early '90s. To see where he is now, keep watching.
Way back in 1992, before the Bill Clinton sex scandal and the O.J. Simpson slow-speed
chase would come to dominate the news cycle, there was another salacious story that ruled
the headlines. It was a story that included a point-blank shooting, a creepy adult man,
and a teenage girl. We are, of course, talking about the saga of Amy Fisher and Joey Buttafuoco.
For those not familiar, Fisher and Buttafuoco began having an affair
after her family had taken a vehicle to Buttafuoco's garage.
She was 16 years old at the time, and he was 35. Having grown jealous of Joey's wife,
Mary Jo, Fisher shot her in the face on May 19, 1992, and served seven years in prison.
"I talked about killing Joey's wife with Joey."
Buttafuoco, meanwhile, also did time, for sexual assault of an underage girl, and was
sentenced to six months in jail. Since their scandal and his eventual release from prison,
Buttafuoco has been unable to stay out of trouble with the law, including one conviction
that will prevent him from making a living the same way he did prior to meeting Amy Fisher.
In 2015, Joey Buttafuoco told Crime Watch Daily that the Amy Fisher scandal
had immediate consequences for him even as the dust was settling on the story,
including what he claims were attempts on his life. Buttafuoco told the outlet:
"Public opinion was against me right from the beginning, within the first two weeks."
He added,
"People shot at me all the time.
One time bullets came past me and they were going right through the glass in my business."
He and Mary Jo tried to save their marriage, moving from New York to California,
but it didn't last, and 10 years after Fisher's trial, she filed for divorce.
Meanwhile, his relationships with his adult children may be ruined, too.
As The New York Daily News reported, Buttafuoco's daughter, Jessie Buttafuoco, believed her
childhood was stolen but has maintained contact with her father. Her brother, Paul, however,
now has a different last name as he does not want to be associated with his dad anymore.
Being the subject of a salacious crime story, however obliquely, can be a path to making money:
Just ask Kato Kaelin, who is still making money decades after his former landlord was tried for
murder. Joey Buttafuoco earned money from being Joey Buttafuoco, at least for a while, after his
trial and imprisonment. For example, according to New York Magazine, he tried and largely failed to
make it as an actor, only managing to score a couple of bit parts in low-visibility roles. In
2012 he appeared on "Celebrity Boxing" and took on Amy Fisher's husband, Lou Bellera. As recently as
2019, Buttafuoco had remarried and was reportedly working on a movie about his early life.
Despite the fact that their relationship cost him his family and, for a time anyway, his freedom,
it seemed that Amy Fisher continued to hold a deep appeal to Mr. Buttafuoco.
This was evidenced by the fact that, 17 years after the dust had settled
on their trial, the pair rekindled their relationship, at least in the bedroom.
"I think we already have love. I think, uh, we've always loved each other."
"I think we did."
Fisher later told Steppin' Out Magazine that it was disappointing. She told the outlet:
"Having sex with Joey wasn't that great 17 years
later. [...] Now he's 50. [...] He didn't take care of himself at all."
It also appears that Joey couldn't stay on the straight and narrow legally, either. Despite
the fact that his most famous crime was a sexual relationship with a teenage girl,
his rap sheet was actually in danger of getting quite lengthy. In 1995 he
was arrested for soliciting a prostitute who was actually an undercover cop. And,
in 2004, he pleaded guilty to insurance fraud. As part of his probation agreement,
he is no longer allowed to work in the auto repair industry which, perhaps ironically, was
how he met Amy Fisher. Finally, in 2007 he served three months for illegally possessing ammunition.
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