Here's What Happened To Joey Buttafuoco
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 and a creepy adult man simping on 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 (per Good Housekeeping). Buttafuoco, meanwhile, also did time, for sexual assault of an underage girl, and was sentenced to six months in jail, according to The New York Times.
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.
Buttafuoco's life and his family fell apart
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. "Public opinion was against me right from the beginning within the first two weeks ... 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 said.
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 from him, according to USA Today. As recently as 2016, it was clear that there was no love lost between the two. "[He exhibits] the behavior of a sociopath," she said (via People).
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.
Buttafuoco milked his fame dry
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, as HuffPost reported at the time, he appeared on "Celebrity Boxing" and took on Amy Fisher's husband, Lou Bellera, depicted above.
As recently as 2019, as Good Housekeeping reported at the time, Buttafuoco had remarried and was reportedly working on a movie about his early life. His daughter Jessie said at the time that her father appeared to be turning over a new leaf. "He's in a growth phase where he's in therapy and he's healing," she said.
Joey Buttafuoco couldn't stay away from crime or Amy Fisher
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 for the sex. Fisher later told Steppin' Out Magazine (via Heavy.com) that it was disappointing. "Having sex with Joey wasn't that great 17 years later ... Now he's 50 ... He didn't take care of himself at all," she said.
It also appears that Joey couldn't stay on the straight and narrow legally, either. As Good Housekeeping reported, 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 (per Auto Body News) which, perhaps ironically, was how he met Amy Fisher. Finally, in 2007 he served three months for illegally possessing ammunition.