Posted on 10/02/2004 5:02:04 PM PDT by wagglebee
GARDEN CITY, N.Y. - Sitting in her editor's office at the Long Island newspaper where she writes a weekly column, Amy Fisher is not the cartoon character portrayed in tabloid headlines and made-for-TV movies more than a decade ago.
While her 3-year-old plays in a nearby room, this 30-year-old married woman - five months pregnant - speaks openly and contritely about her notorious past, which includes a seven-year prison term for shooting the wife of a man with whom she had a sexual relationship as a 16-year-old.
The one-time "Long Island Lolita," who left prison in 1999 hoping never again to be in the public spotlight, has re-emerged, hoping whatever infamy she attained can be turned positive, as a warning for others who may find themselves headed for trouble. Her biography, "If I Knew Then...," published by IUniverse, came out in bookstores this week.
"I don't need people to say, 'Oh well we really love her,'" says Fisher. "What I need people to say is, 'I can identify, I understand.'"
Fisher speaks candidly in the book about her teenage tryst with car mechanic Joey Buttafuoco and the events that led her to his wife's doorstep in May 1992, where she shot the woman in the head, thinking it was what he wanted.
"For the life of me, I don't know why I did it," Fisher writes. "I'll never have an answer for that ... there is no logical reason for why I did it."
She adds: "...I didn't think about this woman having two beautiful children. My God, as a mother now, when I think that someone would take away my little boy's mother ... it's just the worst."
Fisher also contends if the same situation took place today, Buttafuoco would have considered a sexual predator and she would have been viewed more sympathetically.
Following her conviction, Buttafuoco, who for a long time denied having anything to do with Fisher, pleaded guilty to one count of statutory rape and served four months in jail before being released and put on probation. He and his wife, who survived the shooting but remains partially paralyzed, later moved to California and divorced.
In 1995, Buttafuoco pleaded no contest to a charge of soliciting sex from an undercover policewoman in Los Angeles and was sentenced to more than two months in jail in New York for violating his probation. Earlier this year, he pleaded guilty to auto insurance fraud and was sentenced to a year in jail; he was released in September.
"Everybody made it this big love affair," she says derisively. "You know what? He abused me. I was a child and I looked up to him almost like a parental figure. So the words like lover or boyfriend, I mean these things are ridiculous. Nowadays, they would have locked him up for a long time."
Nevertheless, she repeatedly says in the book, "I take 100 percent responsibility for what I did to Mary Jo."
Fisher, who later this month will begin co-hosting a morning radio program on Long Island, says writing the book was so hard she nearly didn't finish.
"(But) there was so much thrown out there about me, about my life, 99 percent of it was negative, 90 percent of it wasn't even true," she says. "So I said, you know what, by telling my true story it can't be any worse than the false story that's already out there."
If so, what is it?
Who cares?
Her life, her problems.
She made the bed, enjoy the nap.
Well, many feel that forgiveness is a key aspect of Christianity. If she is truly sorry, then why condemn her forever?
She isn't making excuses. She appears to be acknowledging she did wrong. She has grown up; she is raising a family. She appears to have turned her life around. She offers insight into the immaturity of a 16 year old girl. Where is Joey Buttafucco these days? He profited off his wife's pain but if he hadn't acted so Clintonesque perhaps there would not have been a shooting.
At the time, I thought Amy Fisher was a lost soul, beyond redemption. I hope I was wrong. Do you hope otherwise?
I think she is trying to make excuses and at the same time profit from her crime.
(read as if telling a knock-knock joke...)
Knock-Knock.
Who's there?
Amy Fisher.
Amy Fish--? *BANG*
A biography? Amy Fisher? With everything that has happened in her life -- or rather, considering how little has happened -- I am not sure whether it would qualify as the world's dullest book or the world's shortest.
I'm sure it's a lot more interesting and truthful than BJ's and Hitlery's fairy tale autobiographys.
I don't have a problem by her wanting to write a book and tell the world her truth but Hopefully she gives all proceeds from this book to a Womens shelter or better yet to Mary Jo B and children.
"I'm sure it's a lot more interesting and truthful than BJ's and Hitlery's fairy tale autobiographys."
Truthful doesn't signify if you have led a dull life. My 24-year-old son could write an even more truthful bio than Ms. Fisher. It would also be eye-poppingly dull to anyone who has been around the last few years. Grew up in a two-parent family, lived in two different houses until he went off to college, went to college and is getting an engineering degree.
So explain to me how a 30-year-old, whose sole claim to notariety is that when she was a teenager she was the reason some guy popped his wife has led a more interesting life than Bill and Hillary? Even granting that Bill and Hill put a high gloss on everything? Use small words, because I must be missing the fascinating touches that you see in Ms. Fisher's life.
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