1
00:00:00,120 --> 00:00:02,240
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, before we start, just a note that we

2
00:00:02,279 --> 00:00:08,800
Speaker 1: discussed sexual assault and abuse in this episode.

3
00:00:06,840 --> 00:00:10,680
Speaker 2: Your Ana. The truth is I did something that was

4
00:00:10,880 --> 00:00:12,120
Speaker 2: so awful and I wish.

5
00:00:11,960 --> 00:00:15,040
Speaker 3: I could take it back. It's also the truth.

6
00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:18,520
Speaker 2: I had an affair with a married man. And it's

7
00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:21,720
Speaker 2: also the truth that Joey knew of my intentions towards

8
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:23,120
Speaker 2: his wife, and he encouraged me.

9
00:00:23,680 --> 00:00:26,239
Speaker 1: That voice you just heard is Amy Fisher, a teen

10
00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:28,840
Speaker 1: girl from Long Island who in nineteen ninety two became

11
00:00:29,000 --> 00:00:33,320
Speaker 1: a tabloid sensation almost overnight when she shot married joe Betafuco,

12
00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:35,680
Speaker 1: the wife of a met older man with whom she'd

13
00:00:35,680 --> 00:00:38,320
Speaker 1: been having sex. Amy would go on to claim that

14
00:00:38,320 --> 00:00:41,000
Speaker 1: that man, Joey Buttafuco, put her up to it.

15
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:43,960
Speaker 2: Sometimes I think this is a nightmare, and it didn't happen,

16
00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:45,240
Speaker 2: and then I realized that it did.

17
00:00:45,920 --> 00:00:48,199
Speaker 1: Within days, the New York Daily News would splash a

18
00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:51,199
Speaker 1: picture of sixteen year old Amy across its front page.

19
00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:55,600
Speaker 1: She was wearing jeane cutoffs, a white T shirt and handcuffs.

20
00:00:56,080 --> 00:01:00,800
Speaker 1: The headline the Long Island Lolita, and that label it

21
00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:02,560
Speaker 1: would follow Amy Fisher forever.

22
00:01:06,680 --> 00:01:10,160
Speaker 3: I'm Susie Vanacarum and I'm Jessica Bennett.

23
00:01:10,440 --> 00:01:13,440
Speaker 1: And this is in Retrospect, where each week we revisit

24
00:01:13,480 --> 00:01:16,000
Speaker 1: a cultural moment from the past that shaped.

25
00:01:15,760 --> 00:01:18,119
Speaker 3: USTs and that we just can't stop thinking about.

26
00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:21,319
Speaker 1: This week, we're talking about Amy Fisher and how she

27
00:01:21,360 --> 00:01:24,280
Speaker 1: came to be known as the Long Island Lolita.

28
00:01:24,240 --> 00:01:26,000
Speaker 3: But we're also talking about the way that.

29
00:01:25,959 --> 00:01:29,119
Speaker 1: Word lolita and that trope is used to paint young

30
00:01:29,160 --> 00:01:31,000
Speaker 1: girls as precocious and seductive.

31
00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:37,639
Speaker 3: This is part one. Susie, remind me what actually happened

32
00:01:37,680 --> 00:01:38,959
Speaker 3: in this case, so.

33
00:01:38,959 --> 00:01:41,480
Speaker 1: I'm going to get into all the details, and it's

34
00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:44,360
Speaker 1: a very twisty story with lots of ins and outs,

35
00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:47,680
Speaker 1: but the essentials of the case are that a seventeen

36
00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:52,520
Speaker 1: year old Amy Fisher, who is a senior in high school,

37
00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:56,400
Speaker 1: shows up at the home of Mary Joe Buttafuco in

38
00:01:56,600 --> 00:02:01,040
Speaker 1: Long Island and shoots her in the face. And it

39
00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:04,400
Speaker 1: comes out and unravels over the course of many months

40
00:02:04,520 --> 00:02:07,400
Speaker 1: in the tabloid press that she's been having an affair

41
00:02:07,480 --> 00:02:10,960
Speaker 1: with Mary Joe's husband and that she has shot her

42
00:02:11,280 --> 00:02:15,520
Speaker 1: in a what's described often as like a jealous rage.

43
00:02:15,639 --> 00:02:18,120
Speaker 1: It's often compared to fatal attraction, which is a movie

44
00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:19,880
Speaker 1: that had come out a couple of years before this,

45
00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:25,960
Speaker 1: and it becomes this really salacious national obsession with this story,

46
00:02:25,960 --> 00:02:29,720
Speaker 1: but particularly around Amy, who is seen as.

47
00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:32,440
Speaker 3: This like seductress. So what made you pick this moment?

48
00:02:32,960 --> 00:02:35,200
Speaker 3: So you know, this was just a huge story at

49
00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:35,560
Speaker 3: the time.

50
00:02:35,639 --> 00:02:38,640
Speaker 1: It's one of the first really big tabloid stories that

51
00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:42,200
Speaker 1: I remember being very aware of. I was in high

52
00:02:42,240 --> 00:02:46,280
Speaker 1: school when this happened, and there were three TV movies

53
00:02:46,280 --> 00:02:48,920
Speaker 1: made about it at the time. I remember watching the

54
00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:52,480
Speaker 1: TV movies when they aired, and I wasn't living in

55
00:02:52,520 --> 00:02:55,880
Speaker 1: New York at that time, but it was just a

56
00:02:55,919 --> 00:03:00,840
Speaker 1: really national phenomenon, this story. And I came across it

57
00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:03,760
Speaker 1: again recently and I thought I knew so much about

58
00:03:03,760 --> 00:03:06,720
Speaker 1: this story. And what really struck me and made me

59
00:03:06,800 --> 00:03:11,400
Speaker 1: want to go deeper is that actually there were so

60
00:03:11,560 --> 00:03:13,880
Speaker 1: many things I did not know, not just that I

61
00:03:13,880 --> 00:03:17,440
Speaker 1: didn't remember, because obviously there are things you forget, but

62
00:03:17,560 --> 00:03:20,360
Speaker 1: that I never knew even though I thought I read

63
00:03:20,560 --> 00:03:23,400
Speaker 1: and saw everything there was to know about this story.

64
00:03:23,639 --> 00:03:25,960
Speaker 3: And you were about the same age as Amy Fisher

65
00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:28,240
Speaker 3: when this was happening, right, Yeah, I was around the

66
00:03:28,240 --> 00:03:28,880
Speaker 3: same age.

67
00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:34,600
Speaker 1: And one thing that is really interesting about it is

68
00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:37,480
Speaker 1: that I never really thought of Amy Fisher as a

69
00:03:37,600 --> 00:03:39,800
Speaker 1: child at the time, right, because I didn't think of

70
00:03:39,840 --> 00:03:43,040
Speaker 1: myself as a child. So when she was kind of

71
00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:46,000
Speaker 1: presented to the world as this seductress, this woman who

72
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:50,120
Speaker 1: had all this agency, a seductress of vixen, and then

73
00:03:50,160 --> 00:03:52,920
Speaker 1: eventually the label that would follow her for the rest

74
00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:55,440
Speaker 1: of her life and continues to follow her now, the

75
00:03:55,520 --> 00:03:59,760
Speaker 1: Long Island Lolita. That never occurred to me as odd

76
00:04:00,080 --> 00:04:02,520
Speaker 1: looking back on it now, I mean, she very much was.

77
00:04:02,600 --> 00:04:05,120
Speaker 3: A child, right, This is a girl. It was a girl.

78
00:04:05,160 --> 00:04:06,480
Speaker 1: And not to say that she didn't make a lot

79
00:04:06,520 --> 00:04:08,920
Speaker 1: of bad decisions or shouldn't have been held accountable for

80
00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:12,400
Speaker 1: some of those decisions. But it's really remarkable how high

81
00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:16,880
Speaker 1: a price she paid versus Joey Buttafuco, who was in

82
00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:21,599
Speaker 1: his late thirties and really was the villain of the story.

83
00:04:22,040 --> 00:04:23,919
Speaker 3: Let's talk a little bit more about the details of

84
00:04:23,960 --> 00:04:26,400
Speaker 3: a story itself. Can you take me back to the beginning?

85
00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:28,839
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm going to take you back to the shooting,

86
00:04:28,960 --> 00:04:31,920
Speaker 1: and then I'm going to wind my way back. So, Okay,

87
00:04:32,040 --> 00:04:36,040
Speaker 1: the shooting takes place on Tuesday May nineteenth, in nineteen

88
00:04:36,080 --> 00:04:39,800
Speaker 1: ninety two. As we've said, at around eleven thirty am,

89
00:04:39,920 --> 00:04:42,800
Speaker 1: a teenage girl knocks on the door of Mary Joe

90
00:04:42,839 --> 00:04:46,680
Speaker 1: Butafuco's house in Massa Piqua, New York, which is a

91
00:04:46,720 --> 00:04:51,279
Speaker 1: long island enclave, a kind of typical suburban neighborhood. And

92
00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:55,640
Speaker 1: Mary Joe is the wife of Joey Buttafuco, a thirty

93
00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:59,240
Speaker 1: eight year old local car mechanic. Mary Joe and Joey

94
00:04:59,400 --> 00:05:01,880
Speaker 1: were high school sweethearts, so at this point they've been

95
00:05:01,880 --> 00:05:06,880
Speaker 1: together for twenty some years. And the girl who is

96
00:05:06,960 --> 00:05:09,960
Speaker 1: knocking on the door is Amy Fisher, but Mary Joe

97
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,160
Speaker 1: doesn't know that. Amy is a seventeen year old senior

98
00:05:13,440 --> 00:05:16,800
Speaker 1: at the local high school in a nearby town. And

99
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:21,320
Speaker 1: Amy says her name is Anne Marie and claims that

100
00:05:21,480 --> 00:05:26,080
Speaker 1: she has a sixteen year old sister who doesn't exist

101
00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:29,440
Speaker 1: because Amy is an only child, and tells Mary Joe

102
00:05:29,600 --> 00:05:32,440
Speaker 1: that her husband, Joey, is having an affair with her,

103
00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:35,800
Speaker 1: and as proof, she brings this T shirt from his

104
00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:41,000
Speaker 1: autobody shop that's called Complete Autobody, and Mary Jo's pretty

105
00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:43,280
Speaker 1: unconvinced by that, like she's like he gives these t

106
00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:46,680
Speaker 1: shirts out to everyone and She's a little annoyed by

107
00:05:46,680 --> 00:05:47,720
Speaker 1: this whole thing.

108
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:50,360
Speaker 3: She's like, who is this child at my door? Yeah?

109
00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:53,560
Speaker 1: And what is she saying about my husband? And then

110
00:05:53,839 --> 00:05:56,919
Speaker 1: at some point Amy ultimately pulls out a gun, a

111
00:05:56,960 --> 00:06:00,760
Speaker 1: twenty five caliber semi automatic pistol, and shoots Mary Joe

112
00:06:00,800 --> 00:06:03,359
Speaker 1: in the face and then runs to a waiting car

113
00:06:03,400 --> 00:06:04,200
Speaker 1: and speeds away.

114
00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:07,640
Speaker 3: Okay, so I purposely didn't remind myself with details of

115
00:06:07,680 --> 00:06:10,359
Speaker 3: this story when you were researching, and I have so

116
00:06:10,480 --> 00:06:13,640
Speaker 3: many questions. Yeah, that makes sense. Were they really having

117
00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:16,440
Speaker 3: an affair? How does thirty eight year old car mechanic

118
00:06:16,480 --> 00:06:18,600
Speaker 3: meet a seventeen year old like who is driving the car?

119
00:06:18,920 --> 00:06:21,719
Speaker 3: But I know you're going to get to all of those. So, first,

120
00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:25,440
Speaker 3: is Mary Joe critically injured? Like she's shot in the face.

121
00:06:25,480 --> 00:06:26,039
Speaker 3: Does she die?

122
00:06:26,360 --> 00:06:29,680
Speaker 1: No, she doesn't die. She is very critically injured. It's

123
00:06:29,880 --> 00:06:32,880
Speaker 1: essentially considered by her doctor's a miracle that she survives.

124
00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:37,520
Speaker 1: She undergoes eight hours of neurosurgery, but oh wow, when

125
00:06:37,560 --> 00:06:41,160
Speaker 1: she wakes up the next morning, she does remember the incident.

126
00:06:41,560 --> 00:06:43,800
Speaker 1: She now has a bullet lodged in her brain, which,

127
00:06:43,800 --> 00:06:45,919
Speaker 1: by the way, is still there. I think to this

128
00:06:46,040 --> 00:06:49,400
Speaker 1: day her face is partially paralyzed, she has double vision

129
00:06:49,440 --> 00:06:52,400
Speaker 1: in one eye, she's deaf in one ear. But despite

130
00:06:52,400 --> 00:06:55,480
Speaker 1: all that, she provides the police with a very detailed

131
00:06:55,480 --> 00:06:59,679
Speaker 1: description of the teenager from the incident, Okay, and Joey,

132
00:06:59,760 --> 00:07:04,919
Speaker 1: who standing by her hospital bed, obviously immediately recognizes the

133
00:07:04,960 --> 00:07:07,960
Speaker 1: description and tells the police that it's Amy.

134
00:07:08,160 --> 00:07:08,840
Speaker 3: Okay.

135
00:07:09,040 --> 00:07:11,200
Speaker 1: So, in answer to your question about whether or not

136
00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:13,960
Speaker 1: they were really having an affair, I mean, obviously Amy

137
00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:16,360
Speaker 1: didn't have a sister, so Joey wasn't having an affair

138
00:07:16,400 --> 00:07:19,000
Speaker 1: with her sixteen year old sister. He was having an

139
00:07:19,040 --> 00:07:21,840
Speaker 1: affair with her which started when she was sixteen, even

140
00:07:21,880 --> 00:07:24,680
Speaker 1: though she's seventeen at the time of the shooting. And

141
00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:29,640
Speaker 1: the police end up arresting Amy within seventy two hours.

142
00:07:30,080 --> 00:07:33,400
Speaker 1: And what they say is that Joey confesses at the

143
00:07:33,400 --> 00:07:36,000
Speaker 1: hospital that he was in fact having an affair with her,

144
00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:38,400
Speaker 1: but then he will go on to deny it for

145
00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:40,760
Speaker 1: months and months and months, like for a full year.

146
00:07:40,800 --> 00:07:43,920
Speaker 1: He will deny that they had a relationship, even though

147
00:07:43,920 --> 00:07:46,600
Speaker 1: he has told the police that once already. He will

148
00:07:46,600 --> 00:07:48,400
Speaker 1: just say that she had an obsessive crush on him

149
00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:49,840
Speaker 1: and was essentially like a stalker.

150
00:07:50,200 --> 00:07:52,080
Speaker 3: I have to ask. I know you're probably gonna get

151
00:07:52,080 --> 00:07:53,720
Speaker 3: to it later, but where are Amy's parents?

152
00:07:53,960 --> 00:07:56,600
Speaker 1: So Amy's parents are around. She's an only child that's

153
00:07:56,680 --> 00:07:59,440
Speaker 1: very much doated on by her parents. And an interesting

154
00:07:59,440 --> 00:08:01,640
Speaker 1: detail is actually when she's picked up by the police

155
00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:05,760
Speaker 1: and then she's questioned all night, and she eventually ends

156
00:08:05,840 --> 00:08:09,120
Speaker 1: up giving them a ten page handwritten confession. She's really

157
00:08:09,160 --> 00:08:11,200
Speaker 1: worried about what her parents are going to think. I mean,

158
00:08:11,200 --> 00:08:13,720
Speaker 1: it really highlights that she's like a teenage kid. She

159
00:08:13,760 --> 00:08:16,720
Speaker 1: doesn't really understand the seriousness of what she's done. So

160
00:08:16,760 --> 00:08:19,000
Speaker 1: she's mostly worried when the police pick her up about

161
00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:22,000
Speaker 1: what is going to happen when her parents find out.

162
00:08:22,080 --> 00:08:24,200
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, so what is said in this ten page

163
00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:25,040
Speaker 3: written confession.

164
00:08:25,120 --> 00:08:27,360
Speaker 1: I've tried to find the confession because obviously I would

165
00:08:27,400 --> 00:08:29,720
Speaker 1: love to read all ten pages of it, but I

166
00:08:29,720 --> 00:08:31,880
Speaker 1: haven't been able to find it. So what I do

167
00:08:32,040 --> 00:08:34,680
Speaker 1: know is that sometime in the months that follow she

168
00:08:34,760 --> 00:08:36,840
Speaker 1: actually will say that Joey knew about her plans to

169
00:08:36,840 --> 00:08:38,960
Speaker 1: shoot Mary joe that for months all he did was

170
00:08:38,960 --> 00:08:40,680
Speaker 1: talk about how much he hated her and how much

171
00:08:40,679 --> 00:08:44,560
Speaker 1: he wanted her to die, and so that's where Amy

172
00:08:44,600 --> 00:08:48,360
Speaker 1: has gotten this idea, and eventually she suggests to Joey

173
00:08:48,360 --> 00:08:50,000
Speaker 1: that she will get a gun and do it, and

174
00:08:50,000 --> 00:08:54,079
Speaker 1: that he agrees. He vehemently denies that he has never

175
00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:57,480
Speaker 1: admitted to having any involvement in the shooting.

176
00:08:57,840 --> 00:09:02,040
Speaker 3: Okay, so we've established she's sixteen when she meets him,

177
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:04,959
Speaker 3: they begin this. I guess it's an affair. Like I

178
00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:07,719
Speaker 3: don't even exactly know whf to call it because she's

179
00:09:07,760 --> 00:09:10,560
Speaker 3: sixteen and he's a thirty eight year old man. Like, yeah,

180
00:09:10,520 --> 00:09:12,880
Speaker 3: I mean sleeping together, but like, I don't know. This

181
00:09:12,960 --> 00:09:13,920
Speaker 3: keeps coming up for us.

182
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:15,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, that keeps coming up for us. It's like something

183
00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:18,040
Speaker 1: we're really struggling with, which is in all of these

184
00:09:18,120 --> 00:09:21,720
Speaker 1: kind of abusive relationships, it's really hard to know what

185
00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:24,720
Speaker 1: the right language is to use because at the time,

186
00:09:24,880 --> 00:09:26,880
Speaker 1: all the coverage refers to it as an affair, so

187
00:09:26,960 --> 00:09:30,000
Speaker 1: it's hard not to use that language. But it's also

188
00:09:30,200 --> 00:09:33,280
Speaker 1: hard to use that language because is he her boyfriend.

189
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:36,520
Speaker 1: He's much older than her, He's more than twenty years

190
00:09:36,559 --> 00:09:39,960
Speaker 1: older than her. She's underage. It is statutory rape, there's

191
00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:43,319
Speaker 1: no question about that. So it is just a struggle

192
00:09:43,400 --> 00:09:46,240
Speaker 1: that we're going to keep having through these episodes, so

193
00:09:46,320 --> 00:09:47,560
Speaker 1: it's worth calling that out.

194
00:09:47,840 --> 00:09:50,800
Speaker 3: And how on earth does a thirty year old grown

195
00:09:50,880 --> 00:09:53,880
Speaker 3: ass man meet a sixteen year old that he's about

196
00:09:53,920 --> 00:09:56,400
Speaker 3: to begin a relationship with. Yeah, great question.

197
00:09:56,720 --> 00:09:59,559
Speaker 1: So how they meet is that he is a mechanic

198
00:09:59,640 --> 00:10:04,640
Speaker 1: and one day she goes to his autobody shop with

199
00:10:04,679 --> 00:10:07,240
Speaker 1: her dad. Her dad has a red Cadillac and he

200
00:10:07,320 --> 00:10:11,320
Speaker 1: takes it into Joey's shop for some repairs, and she is,

201
00:10:11,400 --> 00:10:14,679
Speaker 1: by all accounts kind of immediately enamored of him, and

202
00:10:14,760 --> 00:10:17,520
Speaker 1: she subsequently goes back herself. Her dad is like, just

203
00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:19,320
Speaker 1: go back, and you know, they'll put it on my

204
00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:21,480
Speaker 1: bill or whatever. And she goes back and gets some

205
00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:25,360
Speaker 1: cosmetic work done, and then she starts to make excuses,

206
00:10:25,520 --> 00:10:27,760
Speaker 1: Yeah to the Yeah to the car, And then she

207
00:10:27,800 --> 00:10:31,800
Speaker 1: starts making or finding excuses to go back. There's some

208
00:10:31,880 --> 00:10:34,120
Speaker 1: sense that she gets into like little thunder benders or

209
00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:38,079
Speaker 1: creates issues with her car so that she can continue.

210
00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:38,240
Speaker 3: To see him.

211
00:10:38,679 --> 00:10:43,320
Speaker 1: And they start having sex not long after, and apparently

212
00:10:43,480 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: a lot of it. So she says, the first time

213
00:10:46,120 --> 00:10:48,839
Speaker 1: happens at her home one day when she drops off

214
00:10:48,840 --> 00:10:51,439
Speaker 1: her car and he drives her home and then there

215
00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:53,800
Speaker 1: are a lot of visits to motels, which there are

216
00:10:53,800 --> 00:10:58,040
Speaker 1: receipts for, and they have sex in the shop. And

217
00:10:58,520 --> 00:11:01,480
Speaker 1: here's an amazing detail, they also have sex on his boat,

218
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:03,480
Speaker 1: which is called Double Trouble.

219
00:11:03,600 --> 00:11:05,680
Speaker 3: I feel like all these guys always have boats with

220
00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:06,400
Speaker 3: absurd name.

221
00:11:06,480 --> 00:11:10,880
Speaker 1: Yes, always boats with names that you're just like, that's

222
00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:14,240
Speaker 1: really two on the nose for me. Yeah, And let's

223
00:11:14,320 --> 00:11:17,480
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about who Amy Fisher encounters when

224
00:11:17,480 --> 00:11:20,280
Speaker 1: she innocently goes with her dad to the mechanic. I mean,

225
00:11:20,440 --> 00:11:22,800
Speaker 1: he's a man who would have a boat called Double Trouble.

226
00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:27,640
Speaker 1: He is a former weightlifting and arm wrestling champion. I

227
00:11:27,679 --> 00:11:29,520
Speaker 1: don't know what it means to be an arm wrestling champion.

228
00:11:29,559 --> 00:11:33,479
Speaker 1: I mean it seems self explanatory, but just a funny details.

229
00:11:32,679 --> 00:11:34,760
Speaker 3: Something you do on Long Island. Yeah, exactly.

230
00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:38,000
Speaker 1: He's married with a couple kids nine and twelve at

231
00:11:38,000 --> 00:11:39,240
Speaker 1: the time of the shooting.

232
00:11:39,320 --> 00:11:39,920
Speaker 3: Oh okay.

233
00:11:40,240 --> 00:11:43,120
Speaker 1: And he's known in their little community in Long Island

234
00:11:43,120 --> 00:11:45,720
Speaker 1: that consists of all these little towns as the life

235
00:11:45,720 --> 00:11:49,520
Speaker 1: of the party. This like fun guy who's always wheeling

236
00:11:49,559 --> 00:11:52,000
Speaker 1: and dealing. He's got a reputation as a bit of

237
00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:54,959
Speaker 1: a cut up. He loves attention and he's about to

238
00:11:54,960 --> 00:12:03,800
Speaker 1: get a lot of it.

239
00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:08,040
Speaker 3: Okay, so before the shooting, Joey, but Ifuco and Amy

240
00:12:08,080 --> 00:12:10,920
Speaker 3: Fisher are having this relationship and he's taking her to

241
00:12:10,960 --> 00:12:14,079
Speaker 3: all of these motels, right, So wouldn't that mean there

242
00:12:14,160 --> 00:12:16,679
Speaker 3: was evidence to prove that this affair was happening.

243
00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:20,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty amazing that after Amy's arrested, he continues

244
00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:24,080
Speaker 1: to deny the affair for so long because there is

245
00:12:24,160 --> 00:12:25,679
Speaker 1: just so much evidence, and.

246
00:12:25,640 --> 00:12:28,360
Speaker 3: He's denying it publicly in the press, like to his wife,

247
00:12:28,400 --> 00:12:30,079
Speaker 3: who is he denying it too very much?

248
00:12:30,120 --> 00:12:32,920
Speaker 1: To his wife who stands by him and believes him.

249
00:12:33,360 --> 00:12:34,360
Speaker 1: He's doing a ton.

250
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:37,200
Speaker 3: Of press And I guess the police can't be like, JK,

251
00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:40,200
Speaker 3: he confessed to us, or can they? Like, has it

252
00:12:40,240 --> 00:12:42,760
Speaker 3: not been reported that he has convinced? They do? They

253
00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:45,720
Speaker 3: do say that, So they're just there's two narratives.

254
00:12:45,760 --> 00:12:48,880
Speaker 1: The police are like, he's he's doing it. Yeah, he

255
00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:50,480
Speaker 1: just denies it. He's like, I didn't tell them that.

256
00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:52,440
Speaker 1: I don't know why they're saying that. And then he

257
00:12:52,559 --> 00:12:54,720
Speaker 1: just goes on this like sort of offensive and he's

258
00:12:54,760 --> 00:12:57,760
Speaker 1: supported by Mary Joe and you know Mary Joe's an

259
00:12:57,760 --> 00:12:59,839
Speaker 1: interesting part of the story, right because she is the

260
00:13:00,080 --> 00:13:03,320
Speaker 1: only true victim. She's just living her life and one

261
00:13:03,400 --> 00:13:06,320
Speaker 1: day this girl shows up and shoots her, and she

262
00:13:06,559 --> 00:13:09,000
Speaker 1: really suffers. She has this bullet in her brain. She's

263
00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:11,559
Speaker 1: always going to have the effects of this in her life.

264
00:13:11,800 --> 00:13:15,040
Speaker 1: But I think the thing that really strikes everyone about

265
00:13:15,080 --> 00:13:18,120
Speaker 1: this is that it's pretty obvious he's lying, but she

266
00:13:18,320 --> 00:13:22,640
Speaker 1: stands by him with such vehemence that it seems to

267
00:13:22,760 --> 00:13:27,640
Speaker 1: give him cover. And so of course there are receipts,

268
00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:31,080
Speaker 1: and in fact, one of his coworkers at the body

269
00:13:31,080 --> 00:13:34,040
Speaker 1: shop says to the police the betefo Go bragged about

270
00:13:34,040 --> 00:13:37,000
Speaker 1: giving Amy her first orgasm. They were having an affair.

271
00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:38,720
Speaker 1: There's just no question about it, okay.

272
00:13:38,800 --> 00:13:41,559
Speaker 3: And so initially the shooting doesn't really get a ton

273
00:13:41,600 --> 00:13:43,760
Speaker 3: of coverage. It's like sort of a local story. But

274
00:13:43,800 --> 00:13:45,200
Speaker 3: when does it start to blow up?

275
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:46,840
Speaker 1: So it takes a couple of days, you know, she's

276
00:13:46,960 --> 00:13:50,200
Speaker 1: arrested a couple of days after the shooting, and a

277
00:13:50,240 --> 00:13:53,320
Speaker 1: couple days after that there is the infamous Daily News

278
00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:57,360
Speaker 1: Long Island Lolita cover, and that's the first kind of

279
00:13:57,400 --> 00:13:59,199
Speaker 1: inkling that this is going to be a big story.

280
00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:02,040
Speaker 1: But what al really blows the story up in kind

281
00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:05,040
Speaker 1: of an epic way, is that on June first, which

282
00:14:05,320 --> 00:14:08,680
Speaker 1: is less than a month after the shooting, A Current Affair,

283
00:14:09,120 --> 00:14:12,040
Speaker 1: this tabloid TV program that's very popular at the time,

284
00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:16,200
Speaker 1: airs a grainy video which allegedly shows that Amy Fisher

285
00:14:16,280 --> 00:14:17,240
Speaker 1: is an escort.

286
00:14:17,520 --> 00:14:19,680
Speaker 3: Wait was she an escort? Yeah?

287
00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:22,240
Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many complexities to the story.

288
00:14:22,920 --> 00:14:25,000
Speaker 1: It does appear that she was working as a sex

289
00:14:25,040 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 1: worker before the shooting, and I'll get into that later

290
00:14:28,400 --> 00:14:31,880
Speaker 1: because Joey was involved in that, but let's just stay

291
00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:35,320
Speaker 1: in this moment a little longer. Okay, So what happens

292
00:14:35,400 --> 00:14:38,480
Speaker 1: is one of her alleged former customers has recorded a

293
00:14:38,600 --> 00:14:43,960
Speaker 1: video without her knowledge, and this was when she's sixteen, right, Yeah,

294
00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:46,480
Speaker 1: I mean it's crazy that he did this, and it

295
00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:48,160
Speaker 1: was filmed before she was in the news, so I

296
00:14:48,160 --> 00:14:50,840
Speaker 1: guess he just did this for himself. And then he

297
00:14:51,120 --> 00:14:53,720
Speaker 1: sells the tape to a Current Affair for around eight

298
00:14:53,760 --> 00:14:54,560
Speaker 1: thousand dollars.

299
00:14:54,920 --> 00:14:56,880
Speaker 3: Okay, you don't actually see.

300
00:14:56,560 --> 00:14:59,400
Speaker 1: The sexual encounter on the tape, but you see her

301
00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:03,720
Speaker 1: ask him for money and he pays her, and then

302
00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:05,560
Speaker 1: she asks him to turn the lights off. So for

303
00:15:05,560 --> 00:15:08,040
Speaker 1: a long period it's dark, and then the lights come

304
00:15:08,080 --> 00:15:10,680
Speaker 1: back on and he asks her if she wants to

305
00:15:10,680 --> 00:15:14,640
Speaker 1: go with him to a bachelor party, and she responds anything,

306
00:15:14,840 --> 00:15:16,160
Speaker 1: I'm wild, I don't care.

307
00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:17,000
Speaker 3: I like sex.

308
00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:20,720
Speaker 1: And you can just imagine how this played out in

309
00:15:20,760 --> 00:15:21,400
Speaker 1: the tabloids.

310
00:15:21,640 --> 00:15:24,160
Speaker 3: So this is like a cam quorder. Yes, he has

311
00:15:24,280 --> 00:15:26,640
Speaker 3: propped up somewhere ye, Like, I'm like, is this a

312
00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:27,560
Speaker 3: selfie videot?

313
00:15:27,560 --> 00:15:30,240
Speaker 1: Like I need to It's like a hidden cam quorder, right,

314
00:15:30,280 --> 00:15:32,520
Speaker 1: it's like before iPhones or anything. Yep. I think it's

315
00:15:32,560 --> 00:15:35,360
Speaker 1: like in his basement and without her knowledge, he has

316
00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,960
Speaker 1: made a sex tape of this underage girl that is, now,

317
00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:42,520
Speaker 1: I want to reiterate, being aired on national television. Can

318
00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:46,119
Speaker 1: you imagine now a sex tape being aired on national television?

319
00:15:46,560 --> 00:15:48,160
Speaker 3: So is this kind of a turning point in the

320
00:15:48,200 --> 00:15:49,520
Speaker 3: story they show this tape?

321
00:15:49,640 --> 00:15:52,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think an interesting thing to note is

322
00:15:52,080 --> 00:15:55,280
Speaker 1: obviously that he was paid for this, right.

323
00:15:55,440 --> 00:15:58,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. This kind of pay for play, that's what it's called,

324
00:15:58,120 --> 00:16:01,600
Speaker 3: when you pay for stories was so common back then,

325
00:16:01,640 --> 00:16:04,880
Speaker 3: and this is sort of how the tabloids dealt with stories.

326
00:16:05,160 --> 00:16:07,520
Speaker 1: This was the ecosystem, and I think that is just

327
00:16:07,600 --> 00:16:10,000
Speaker 1: not something real journalists do, right, You and I would

328
00:16:10,000 --> 00:16:12,920
Speaker 1: never pay for a story, but there are still some

329
00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:15,920
Speaker 1: ways in which that happens. The Daily Mail is probably

330
00:16:16,160 --> 00:16:19,160
Speaker 1: the only kind of digital publication that'll occasionally pay for

331
00:16:19,200 --> 00:16:22,280
Speaker 1: a story. But an interesting detail that most people don't

332
00:16:22,320 --> 00:16:26,360
Speaker 1: know is that the way network journalism actually does pay

333
00:16:26,400 --> 00:16:29,160
Speaker 1: for stories, even though it claims it never does, is

334
00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:32,400
Speaker 1: that when you do a big interview with someone that's

335
00:16:32,520 --> 00:16:37,160
Speaker 1: like in the headlines, you aren't allowed ethically to pay

336
00:16:37,200 --> 00:16:40,120
Speaker 1: them to appear on the show, but you can pay

337
00:16:40,160 --> 00:16:44,560
Speaker 1: them for other things, like if they give you videotapes,

338
00:16:44,680 --> 00:16:47,760
Speaker 1: you can license them if they give you pictures. So

339
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:52,240
Speaker 1: there is a way that some network television still does

340
00:16:52,800 --> 00:16:55,440
Speaker 1: pay in a way for stories. But back then it

341
00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:58,160
Speaker 1: was just super blatant. It was just like, we'll pay you.

342
00:16:58,480 --> 00:17:02,640
Speaker 1: Come on, there's no ethical standards around this, okay. So

343
00:17:02,720 --> 00:17:06,119
Speaker 1: this is a total feeding frenzy. Everyone is reporting on this.

344
00:17:06,440 --> 00:17:09,280
Speaker 3: What kinds of headlines are we actually getting in these tabloids?

345
00:17:09,359 --> 00:17:11,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, in addition to the Long Island Lolita, the

346
00:17:11,800 --> 00:17:14,879
Speaker 1: Daily News does a follow up the Lolita tapes, and

347
00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:17,800
Speaker 1: the New York Post does call Girl by Night, And

348
00:17:18,560 --> 00:17:22,600
Speaker 1: I think the prize for most fallacious goes to the

349
00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:27,080
Speaker 1: New York News day headline, which is o Amy Oh Amy,

350
00:17:27,280 --> 00:17:30,200
Speaker 1: o Amy gross.

351
00:17:30,400 --> 00:17:32,680
Speaker 3: Oh. And isn't she also on the cover of People.

352
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:34,520
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess this is every It's like, it's

353
00:17:34,520 --> 00:17:36,480
Speaker 3: everywhere beyond the New York tabloids.

354
00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:38,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's now the story is extending beyond the

355
00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:40,840
Speaker 1: New York tabloids. And she's also on the cover of

356
00:17:40,920 --> 00:17:44,719
Speaker 1: People as the lethal Lolita. So this name is really

357
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:47,880
Speaker 1: starting to stick, and she's going to be known as

358
00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:49,760
Speaker 1: the Long Island Lolita now forever.

359
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,720
Speaker 3: So there's so many complexities to this story. But was

360
00:17:58,760 --> 00:18:01,479
Speaker 3: she really an escort? Like true, she was working as

361
00:18:01,520 --> 00:18:02,280
Speaker 3: a prostitute.

362
00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:05,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that part is true. She was a

363
00:18:05,359 --> 00:18:08,159
Speaker 1: sex worker. But I think, like everything else in the story,

364
00:18:08,200 --> 00:18:11,639
Speaker 1: it's not quite that simple or as it seems. After

365
00:18:12,320 --> 00:18:14,840
Speaker 1: a current affair airs this tape of her, she has

366
00:18:14,880 --> 00:18:18,080
Speaker 1: a bail hearing and her lawyer says that actually it's

367
00:18:18,160 --> 00:18:20,679
Speaker 1: Joey who recruited Amy to work at the escort service,

368
00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:24,640
Speaker 1: and he calls Joey her pimp, which I'm not sure

369
00:18:24,760 --> 00:18:27,439
Speaker 1: is technically true because I don't think he was like

370
00:18:27,480 --> 00:18:31,200
Speaker 1: taking a cut, but he is the one, it appears,

371
00:18:31,200 --> 00:18:34,800
Speaker 1: who recruited her to be part of this agency after

372
00:18:34,920 --> 00:18:38,760
Speaker 1: their affair started, or their relationship or whatever we're calling it,

373
00:18:39,359 --> 00:18:43,680
Speaker 1: And her lawyer actually says in this public hearing, Amy

374
00:18:43,720 --> 00:18:46,920
Speaker 1: Fisher was used and abused by mister Betafuco. He did

375
00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:49,679
Speaker 1: a number of things that were reprehensible, including putting a

376
00:18:49,720 --> 00:18:52,639
Speaker 1: young girl into prostitution and using a young girl for

377
00:18:52,720 --> 00:18:55,960
Speaker 1: his own purposes. I believe the wrong person stands before

378
00:18:56,000 --> 00:18:59,600
Speaker 1: the docket at this time, but that's not really the

379
00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:02,119
Speaker 1: narrative of that plays out right. It's like she's no

380
00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:05,600
Speaker 1: longer this innocent girl who's been taking advantage of by

381
00:19:05,680 --> 00:19:10,600
Speaker 1: this man. She is this like sex worker seductress who's

382
00:19:10,640 --> 00:19:14,840
Speaker 1: shot his wife, who's like an unhinged, fatal attraction type character,

383
00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:18,240
Speaker 1: and that characterization of her really doesn't go away.

384
00:19:18,560 --> 00:19:20,919
Speaker 3: It's interesting because I feel like this still plays out

385
00:19:20,960 --> 00:19:23,640
Speaker 3: today where you can have these two competing narratives, one

386
00:19:23,720 --> 00:19:26,720
Speaker 3: in the actual courtroom and that's what the lawyer is arguing. Yeah,

387
00:19:26,920 --> 00:19:29,760
Speaker 3: that is completely different from the one that has taken

388
00:19:29,800 --> 00:19:34,040
Speaker 3: hold in the popular culture. And so while New Yorkers

389
00:19:34,080 --> 00:19:37,320
Speaker 3: are going around referring to the lion Lonita her lawyer

390
00:19:37,480 --> 00:19:39,640
Speaker 3: can talk about how she's a victim and an underage

391
00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:43,280
Speaker 3: girl and being forced or whatever you want to call it,

392
00:19:43,320 --> 00:19:45,960
Speaker 3: to be a sex worker in a court of law.

393
00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:48,480
Speaker 1: It is pretty wild that this story only kind of

394
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,280
Speaker 1: plays out in this salacious way, Like very few people

395
00:19:51,320 --> 00:19:55,720
Speaker 1: are like, wait a second, if she's a prostitute, what's

396
00:19:55,880 --> 00:19:59,240
Speaker 1: his role in that? And he never admits that he

397
00:20:00,240 --> 00:20:04,080
Speaker 1: was involved with this escort agency, but there does appear

398
00:20:04,119 --> 00:20:07,119
Speaker 1: to be evidence that he was. And the escort agency

399
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:10,520
Speaker 1: is called ABBA, and the Daily News looks into it,

400
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:12,439
Speaker 1: and I'll read you a little bit.

401
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:13,600
Speaker 3: From that article. Okay.

402
00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:16,640
Speaker 1: The Daily News interviewed owners of two escort services who

403
00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:19,159
Speaker 1: said but A Fuco recruited young women to work for

404
00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:22,840
Speaker 1: ABBA and was known by the nickname Joey Coco Pops

405
00:20:23,119 --> 00:20:26,200
Speaker 1: because he supplied cocaine to hookers and their clients. But

406
00:20:26,320 --> 00:20:29,320
Speaker 1: Afuko denies both charges, but he does admit to being

407
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:32,919
Speaker 1: treated for an unspecified substance abuse problem three years ago.

408
00:20:33,240 --> 00:20:35,960
Speaker 1: His attorney says he is free of that problem now.

409
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:40,119
Speaker 1: Joey Coco Pops. Yeah, I mean, look, Joey Coco Pops

410
00:20:40,240 --> 00:20:43,399
Speaker 1: is actually a great tabloid headline name. But we do

411
00:20:43,520 --> 00:20:46,320
Speaker 1: not see Joey Coco Pops go viral the way we

412
00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:49,560
Speaker 1: see the Long Island Lolita go viral. Right, there's evidence

413
00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:53,959
Speaker 1: that he is working for an escort agency and giving

414
00:20:54,000 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 1: cocaine to other sex workers, but that doesn't really take

415
00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:00,760
Speaker 1: hold in the national obsession with this story.

416
00:21:01,119 --> 00:21:03,800
Speaker 3: I didn't even know this detail until I did this research.

417
00:21:04,119 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 3: And so what's happening on court? Does the judge buy

418
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:09,159
Speaker 3: this idea that he is her pimp?

419
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:13,119
Speaker 1: No, he's completely unswayed by it, and so he actually

420
00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:15,719
Speaker 1: sets the highest bail in the history of the county

421
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 1: at that time.

422
00:21:16,800 --> 00:21:19,600
Speaker 3: It's a two million dollar bail. Okay, And I don't

423
00:21:19,640 --> 00:21:22,480
Speaker 3: have a good sense of Amy's family at this point.

424
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:25,119
Speaker 3: Is that something they can afford? Not really?

425
00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:28,160
Speaker 1: I mean they're a very middle class family. They work

426
00:21:28,240 --> 00:21:30,960
Speaker 1: six days a week in an upholstery shop that they own.

427
00:21:31,000 --> 00:21:34,879
Speaker 1: They're not like super rich, high flying people. They're just

428
00:21:34,960 --> 00:21:38,520
Speaker 1: like a seemingly normal middle class family from the nineties.

429
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:40,440
Speaker 3: Okay, so they can't pay it. So what do they do?

430
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:43,160
Speaker 3: Do They appeal that? Can you appeal that? Yeah?

431
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:47,160
Speaker 1: So you can't appeal, And her attorney does try and appeal,

432
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:50,840
Speaker 1: but after he's rejected a couple times, he decides to

433
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 1: get creative. Her attorney is a former vibrating bed salesman,

434
00:21:56,600 --> 00:22:01,040
Speaker 1: whatever that means, and a frustrated after I.

435
00:22:01,040 --> 00:22:02,760
Speaker 3: Don't know if you're gonna ask me what that means,

436
00:22:02,800 --> 00:22:04,760
Speaker 3: and I'm going to tell you, I do not know what.

437
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 3: I think it has something to do with waterbeds, right,

438
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:10,320
Speaker 3: like waterbeds were popular at this time.

439
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:13,000
Speaker 1: That's kind of immediately what I assume that it was

440
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:15,720
Speaker 1: like a vibrating waterbed, but I honestly, I don't know.

441
00:22:16,040 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 3: It's just one of the I'm gonna google it while

442
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:18,480
Speaker 3: you're talking.

443
00:22:18,560 --> 00:22:20,719
Speaker 1: It's just one of those details that you're like, I

444
00:22:20,760 --> 00:22:23,800
Speaker 1: have to include this because it's so specific and weird.

445
00:22:24,119 --> 00:22:26,159
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Yeah. Look. Wait, I'm looking at a

446
00:22:26,200 --> 00:22:30,200
Speaker 3: picture from an article of something called the Magic Fingers

447
00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:33,040
Speaker 3: Relaxation Service. This is a hotel room, and there's like

448
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:36,040
Speaker 3: a woman standing by showing this sign and yes, you

449
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:39,840
Speaker 3: put in twenty five cents for fifteen minutes, and it

450
00:22:39,960 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 3: says it quickly carries you into the land of tingling

451
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:48,600
Speaker 3: relaxation and ease. Try it, you'll never sleep so good.

452
00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:52,800
Speaker 1: Well, I guess the business wasn't that successful because he's

453
00:22:52,840 --> 00:22:56,280
Speaker 1: gone on from his vibrating bed salesman days to become

454
00:22:56,600 --> 00:22:59,199
Speaker 1: a lawyer. But because he is this kind of showman,

455
00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:03,320
Speaker 1: this failed actor, he really takes on the role of

456
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:07,040
Speaker 1: being her lawyer in this very public way, and he

457
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:09,719
Speaker 1: announces that what he's going to do to raise money

458
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 1: for her to make bail is he's going to sell

459
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,080
Speaker 1: her life story to a publisher or a movie company,

460
00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:19,120
Speaker 1: and he essentially just like puts it up for auction

461
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:21,640
Speaker 1: and is like, if anyone wants her life story, they

462
00:23:21,680 --> 00:23:25,639
Speaker 1: can bid, and he does get a ton of bids

463
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:27,840
Speaker 1: for her life story, and eventually he does sell it,

464
00:23:28,200 --> 00:23:32,400
Speaker 1: and she does make bail, and she's released in late

465
00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:36,520
Speaker 1: July over the strenuous objections of Mary Joe but Afuco,

466
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:39,000
Speaker 1: who is just like, I do not feel safe with

467
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: this woman not being behind bars, and she gives a

468
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:44,720
Speaker 1: press conference and she says, I just know what this

469
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:47,560
Speaker 1: girl did to me in Cold Blood. She's a sick girl,

470
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: which I mean fair for Mary Joe.

471
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 3: So, Susie, I want to talk a bit about what's

472
00:24:01,520 --> 00:24:04,240
Speaker 3: happening in the culture at the time. But one thing

473
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:06,240
Speaker 3: that stuck out to me as you're describing this is

474
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,560
Speaker 3: this is nineteen ninety two, which is the so called

475
00:24:09,640 --> 00:24:12,400
Speaker 3: Year of the Woman. This was the year after Anita

476
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:16,919
Speaker 3: Hill testified before Congress about sexual harassment suffered at the

477
00:24:16,920 --> 00:24:20,840
Speaker 3: hands of Clarence Thomas. And following that, there was this

478
00:24:21,160 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 3: woman's wave in Congress where twenty four women were elected

479
00:24:24,560 --> 00:24:26,480
Speaker 3: to the House of Representatives. I think there were four

480
00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 3: to the Senate, and all of the headlines were talking

481
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 3: about this progressive time that we were in. It was

482
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,600
Speaker 3: the Year of the Woman, and yet this is happening

483
00:24:34,760 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 3: amidst that. So what else is happening at the time.

484
00:24:38,720 --> 00:24:40,439
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to sort of set the scene for

485
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: you of what was going on in America in nineteen

486
00:24:42,680 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 1: ninety two. So this is also the year that Bill

487
00:24:44,760 --> 00:24:46,200
Speaker 1: Clinton is elected president.

488
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,520
Speaker 3: This election is a clarion call for our country to

489
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:52,600
Speaker 3: face the challenges on the end of the Cold War

490
00:24:53,320 --> 00:24:56,760
Speaker 3: and the beginning of the next century. It's his first term.

491
00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:01,200
Speaker 1: So this is well before the Monica Lewinsky stuff comes

492
00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:01,600
Speaker 1: to light.

493
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:04,560
Speaker 3: It's also the year of the La riots. Black spoke

494
00:25:04,960 --> 00:25:08,200
Speaker 3: pouring into the sky all over town. That's what Los

495
00:25:08,240 --> 00:25:09,679
Speaker 3: Angeles looks like this morning.

496
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 1: It is the year Mike Tyson does on trial for

497
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: sexual assault.

498
00:25:14,119 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 3: Tyson was indicted by a special grand jury on charges

499
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 3: that he allegedly raped an eighteen year old beauty pageant contestant.

500
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:26,160
Speaker 1: So that's kind of the era that Amy's story enters into.

501
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,879
Speaker 3: And this is playing out prominently in the tabloids, right, Like,

502
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:31,400
Speaker 3: the tabloids are a huge.

503
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:33,440
Speaker 1: Part of this, Yeah, a huge part of this and

504
00:25:33,520 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: also extremely powerful in this era. Really throughout the eighties

505
00:25:37,119 --> 00:25:41,080
Speaker 1: and nineties in New York this was the heyday of

506
00:25:41,160 --> 00:25:44,919
Speaker 1: the tabloid era. It's three papers, the New York Posts,

507
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:49,560
Speaker 1: the Daily News, and news Day, and they just set

508
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:52,639
Speaker 1: the tone and agenda for coverage in the city. And

509
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:55,359
Speaker 1: there's also something that we don't really have now, which

510
00:25:55,400 --> 00:25:59,479
Speaker 1: is tabloid television shows like hard Copy and a Current Affair.

511
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 1: These were hugely popular shows and really the only modern

512
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: corollary is probably TMZ, But TMZ doesn't have kind of

513
00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: a stranglehold on the culture the way hard Copy in

514
00:26:10,359 --> 00:26:13,880
Speaker 1: a Current Affair did. Those shows tabloid papers, they were everywhere.

515
00:26:14,000 --> 00:26:15,960
Speaker 3: Do you think everybody knows what a tabloid is?

516
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,679
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a good question. I'm not sure I know

517
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:22,159
Speaker 1: exactly what makes something a tabloid other than just like that.

518
00:26:22,200 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: It's salacious.

519
00:26:23,119 --> 00:26:25,640
Speaker 3: It's basically can you read it on the subway without

520
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 3: folding it? Oh so broadsheet paid the New York Times.

521
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:32,080
Speaker 3: I didn't know that where you have to open the

522
00:26:32,119 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 3: pages and if you're sitting close to other people on

523
00:26:34,359 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 3: the subway, you fold it over so that you're not

524
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:40,120
Speaker 3: like elbowing them and you read it. But tabloids are

525
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 3: the smaller size and you can page through it like

526
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:45,239
Speaker 3: it's I don't know, it's a little bit larger than

527
00:26:45,280 --> 00:26:48,200
Speaker 3: a magazine. But this was a time in New York

528
00:26:48,280 --> 00:26:51,200
Speaker 3: where like these papers set the agenda and the tone,

529
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:54,199
Speaker 3: and they had these iconic covers. They still do to

530
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 3: some extent where everyone would rush to the newstands and

531
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 3: they would see the New York Posts and the Daily

532
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 3: News side by side, and sometimes Newsday, which was the

533
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 3: Long Island based paper, and you would look at what

534
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:07,479
Speaker 3: the headline of the day was and you would compare

535
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:08,720
Speaker 3: how they had framed.

536
00:27:08,440 --> 00:27:11,439
Speaker 1: It, and the headline writers sort of competed for who

537
00:27:11,480 --> 00:27:14,000
Speaker 1: would have the headline of the day.

538
00:27:14,640 --> 00:27:17,199
Speaker 3: To get back to Amy, so you were saying that

539
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 3: she just managed to make bail thanks to the lawyer

540
00:27:20,040 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 3: who is the ex vibrating mattress salesman. He's sold the

541
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 3: rights to her story. Now she's out of weeding sentencing.

542
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 3: But I want to get back to her parents for

543
00:27:28,760 --> 00:27:31,520
Speaker 3: a second, because where are they in all of this, Like,

544
00:27:31,560 --> 00:27:34,639
Speaker 3: are they defending her? Are they going with her to court?

545
00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 3: What is their relationship?

546
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,640
Speaker 1: You know, Amy's relationship with her parents is pretty complicated.

547
00:27:39,720 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: They do stand by her, and she's often portrayed as

548
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 1: the spoiled child, but the truth is she had a

549
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 1: pretty fucked up childhood and there was definitely some sexual

550
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:51,680
Speaker 1: abuse early on, but all of that comes out much

551
00:27:51,720 --> 00:27:52,760
Speaker 1: later in her books.

552
00:27:52,800 --> 00:27:56,159
Speaker 3: She has two and interviews she did Okay, got it.

553
00:27:56,280 --> 00:27:58,720
Speaker 3: So it's a complicated relationship and we know it was

554
00:27:58,920 --> 00:28:00,680
Speaker 3: definitely not an easy childhood.

555
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not known so much at the time, but

556
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 1: it is pretty clear now that she had a very

557
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:12,800
Speaker 1: traumatic childhood, and she does eventually allege that also she

558
00:28:12,880 --> 00:28:17,479
Speaker 1: was abused by her father physically. The exact nature of

559
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: that abuse is not entirely known. It's pretty clear that

560
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:25,520
Speaker 1: it was physical, but not clear if there was a

561
00:28:25,520 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 1: sexual component to it. But all the press is reporting

562
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:31,240
Speaker 1: at that time because they don't know any of that

563
00:28:31,280 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 1: information is that she has these, you know, parents who

564
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: really spoil her. Her father, Elliott Fisher, is fifty six

565
00:28:39,680 --> 00:28:42,640
Speaker 1: years old at this time, and her mother is thirty nine,

566
00:28:43,120 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: so her father's a lot older than her mother, and

567
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 1: maybe that's why she doesn't automatically think this age gap

568
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:53,080
Speaker 1: between her and Joey is so weird because they're almost

569
00:28:53,120 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: twenty years apart. As well, she's described in the press

570
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: as this very spoiled child in one article in People.

571
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:02,680
Speaker 1: The evidence they gave to support that is that she

572
00:29:02,760 --> 00:29:06,000
Speaker 1: has her own room with matching furniture, and her own

573
00:29:06,080 --> 00:29:09,400
Speaker 1: phone and an endless supply of stuffed animals.

574
00:29:09,680 --> 00:29:12,680
Speaker 3: And that really struck me because I was like.

575
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: A room full of stuffed animals for a sixteen year

576
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: old girl isn't something I associate with like some spoiled vixen.

577
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 1: It really just like evokes this image of a girl,

578
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: a little girl who's gotten wrapped up in something that's

579
00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:28,280
Speaker 1: just much beyond her comprehension.

580
00:29:28,760 --> 00:29:31,520
Speaker 3: That's so interesting because it kind of plays into this

581
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:35,600
Speaker 3: like virginal temptress thing. I don't know if you remember.

582
00:29:35,680 --> 00:29:39,400
Speaker 3: There was a famous cover of Britney Spears in Rolling

583
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 3: Stone when she was young, and it was sort of

584
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 3: the first big cover and in the spread in there

585
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 3: I was researching this at one point there is an

586
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:49,840
Speaker 3: image of her lying on her bed in sort of

587
00:29:49,840 --> 00:29:52,680
Speaker 3: a sexy manner, surrounded by stuffed animals, and it just

588
00:29:52,720 --> 00:29:54,600
Speaker 3: reminds me of that because part of the thing that

589
00:29:54,720 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 3: was so titillating about Britney Spears at that time was

590
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:00,000
Speaker 3: that like is she a girl? Is she a woman?

591
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:03,200
Speaker 3: And I think there's something about that we're tapping in

592
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:07,440
Speaker 3: here with Amy too, Like a magazine knows how that

593
00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:09,680
Speaker 3: will play out, Like all of these little details or

594
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 3: you have an idea of how they're going to play

595
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 3: when you're puting them into a story. And the idea

596
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,959
Speaker 3: of this sexy young vixen who was maybe a sex worker,

597
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 3: maybe not, but had this affair and has a room

598
00:30:20,800 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 3: full of stuffed.

599
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 1: Animals, Yeah, in a weird way, it contributes to her sexualization,

600
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: even though it's not a sexy thing to have. And

601
00:30:28,280 --> 00:30:30,520
Speaker 1: the other details also that they used to be like

602
00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: she's so spoiled are kind of silly, right, It's like

603
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 1: they're like, she has her own phone line, and I

604
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:37,280
Speaker 1: mean I had my own phone line. I was a

605
00:30:37,280 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: little spoiled, but I wasn't like, you know, Paris, Hilton

606
00:30:40,000 --> 00:30:42,720
Speaker 1: or anything. And she has her own car, and this

607
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 1: detail is kind of relevant because it's something that her

608
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,360
Speaker 1: and Joey use in their relationship. She has a beeper,

609
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 1: which apparently is considered a very fancy thing to have

610
00:30:52,520 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: among her high school friends. Do the kids know what

611
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:58,959
Speaker 1: a beeper is? I think we need to explain it.

612
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,640
Speaker 3: It's a pager, pa. I had one in high school.

613
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 3: Did you have one? No?

614
00:31:02,360 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: I never had one because I honestly associated them. I mean,

615
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: I know this is terrible and probably somewhat with drug

616
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: dealers sucked up, but yeah, I associated them with drug dealers.

617
00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:12,320
Speaker 3: Well no, that I mean, that's not fucked up. Drug

618
00:31:12,360 --> 00:31:14,640
Speaker 3: dealers had pagers. That was like how you got your

619
00:31:14,720 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 3: drug dealer to call you back. But it became popular

620
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:21,120
Speaker 3: or soon. Point. It was not till years later in

621
00:31:21,120 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 3: the late nineties when I had a pager. But yeah,

622
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,160
Speaker 3: I saved my money up, I saved my allowance. Anyway.

623
00:31:25,240 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 3: The point is a pager was like a little button

624
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 3: thing that you could put on your belt or in

625
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 3: your purse or whatever, and you would call it from

626
00:31:33,960 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 3: a phone and you could type in a code, and

627
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:38,040
Speaker 3: so you would get a code in a pager, and

628
00:31:38,080 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 3: so like my pager code was eleven. So when I

629
00:31:41,640 --> 00:31:44,760
Speaker 3: would page my friends, I'd be like, uh, four one

630
00:31:44,920 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 3: one dash eleven and it would be like, what's up

631
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 3: from Jess And then they would language which I did

632
00:31:52,280 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 3: not know about it. Oh yeah, and then they would

633
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 3: know to call me on my home phone. I don't

634
00:31:57,400 --> 00:31:59,520
Speaker 3: know how common that was in nineteen ninety two. Maybe

635
00:31:59,520 --> 00:32:01,520
Speaker 3: that was a spoiled thing to have, but like by

636
00:32:01,560 --> 00:32:04,400
Speaker 3: the time I was in high school in nineteen ninety eight,

637
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 3: we kind of all hit patrios.

638
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:10,080
Speaker 1: Well, the code thing is really relevant because another one

639
00:32:10,120 --> 00:32:12,080
Speaker 1: of those little details in the story that I feel

640
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,440
Speaker 1: like if you wrote into a fictional story, people would

641
00:32:14,440 --> 00:32:19,000
Speaker 1: be like, come on, is that Joey? But a Fuco's

642
00:32:19,080 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: code for Amy was double O seven.

643
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 3: Oh, so that was like, it's double O seven calling you. Yeah.

644
00:32:26,160 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: It just like sort of gets to this idea that

645
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:31,440
Speaker 1: he's this thing, right, he's really self important man. He

646
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: thinks he's like James Bond when he's really just this

647
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:37,440
Speaker 1: like creep mechanic who's creeping on carmettal girl.

648
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,520
Speaker 3: It's like perfectly he's like car mechanic. Yeah. Also, now

649
00:32:40,560 --> 00:32:42,760
Speaker 3: that I've said that, I have remembered that my code

650
00:32:42,840 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 3: was actually seventeen and my friend Anna's code was eleven.

651
00:32:45,400 --> 00:32:47,160
Speaker 3: So I just want to clarify that for the record.

652
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 3: So Anna isn't mad, Okay, fair, fair, Okay. So Susie,

653
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:54,560
Speaker 3: let's get back to the case itself. Okay. So there's

654
00:32:54,600 --> 00:32:58,240
Speaker 3: this period after she's posted bail, she's out, but before

655
00:32:58,280 --> 00:33:01,240
Speaker 3: she's played guilty, when the circus continues.

656
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are these frequent press conferences from lawyers on

657
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: both sides. The buttaficos themselves do a lot of talk

658
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:13,080
Speaker 1: show appearances and press conferences. Everyone involved is like really

659
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:15,440
Speaker 1: leaning into this circus atmosphere.

660
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, sounds intense.

661
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:19,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, And watching it all back, I became really curious

662
00:33:19,080 --> 00:33:20,880
Speaker 1: about what it must have been like to cover the

663
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:23,080
Speaker 1: story as it was happening, you know. And there's this

664
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,080
Speaker 1: one reporter who really stands out, this woman Amy Pagnosey,

665
00:33:26,120 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: who was a columnist for the New York Post, and

666
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: she was literally the only person who was not buying

667
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: into the prevailing narrative.

668
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 3: So I did a little digging and I found her.

669
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 4: You're the first person that I've talked to about this

670
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 4: for years and years because I basically have always turned

671
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:43,840
Speaker 4: this subject down.

672
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: And here she is describing what it was like to

673
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:48,240
Speaker 1: be part of the Amy Fisher scrum.

674
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:50,880
Speaker 4: Well, every single one of those scenes was kind of

675
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 4: like the Princess Diana Chase, who had people walking up

676
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,840
Speaker 4: and saying heinous things just to get reactions. Photographers could

677
00:33:58,840 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 4: make money back in the day anyway, probably still today

678
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 4: if they got a celebrity to punch them. So there

679
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,520
Speaker 4: was a lot of provocation of people in the media

680
00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:07,480
Speaker 4: trying to get them to talk.

681
00:34:07,520 --> 00:34:09,399
Speaker 1: The tablot TV shows at the time really did play

682
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:11,279
Speaker 1: a big role in the story, right, because they were

683
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,320
Speaker 1: paying so many people for Amy's stories.

684
00:34:13,440 --> 00:34:17,319
Speaker 4: Well, paycheck journalism was a new thing. I think I

685
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:19,520
Speaker 4: was not familiar with it. I was really shocked in

686
00:34:19,560 --> 00:34:21,719
Speaker 4: the beginning when I would go to a story and

687
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 4: find out that the story had been purchased by you know,

688
00:34:24,160 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 4: Inside Edition or a current affair.

689
00:34:25,760 --> 00:34:27,320
Speaker 3: They had these huge check books.

690
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 4: It was like an echo chamber, you know, where you'd

691
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,840
Speaker 4: appear here and then it would amplify there, and the

692
00:34:33,920 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 4: money was being thrown around.

693
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 3: And I don't think people.

694
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 4: Today, because there's so much inflation, realized what fifty thousand

695
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:41,560
Speaker 4: dollars was back then.

696
00:34:42,000 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 3: I mean it was huge money. You know, people were

697
00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 3: selling out everybody else.

698
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 4: I mean, honestly, the people who did things to Amy

699
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 4: were horrible for doing them, but you know, basically these

700
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,520
Speaker 4: were gym rats who with you know, tiny mind shaped

701
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:55,319
Speaker 4: like dumpsters.

702
00:34:55,480 --> 00:34:57,400
Speaker 3: Wasn't just the media who played that role. It seems

703
00:34:57,400 --> 00:34:57,759
Speaker 3: like all.

704
00:34:57,680 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 1: The players were also really encouraging this media circus atmosphere.

705
00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 4: I mean, initially, Mary Joe was not feeding into this.

706
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,239
Speaker 4: She was fighting for her life and I pretty much

707
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,799
Speaker 4: blame him for everything. One of the things that you

708
00:35:11,840 --> 00:35:14,080
Speaker 4: have to take into consideration was that she needed a

709
00:35:14,120 --> 00:35:17,239
Speaker 4: lot of home care after she had those surgeries, and

710
00:35:17,320 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 4: Joey was nursing her and he was by her side.

711
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 4: Twenty four to seven, she'd just been shot. She was

712
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:26,800
Speaker 4: emotionally devastated, and I honestly think that when she did things,

713
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 4: she did it for the money to actually be able

714
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,480
Speaker 4: to support her kids.

715
00:35:34,120 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 3: Okay, I love hearing this through the actual reporter's perspective

716
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 3: who covered it at the time. But also that's such

717
00:35:41,320 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 3: a good point about Mary Joe, Like, of course everyone

718
00:35:44,520 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 3: who's watching this is thinking, why is she doing all

719
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,480
Speaker 3: these interviews defending him, Like how pathetic is that? But

720
00:35:50,880 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 3: she's in this incredibly vulnerable position and he's literally her

721
00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:56,120
Speaker 3: caretaker totally.

722
00:35:55,840 --> 00:35:59,080
Speaker 1: And she's really going after Amy because understandably, she's in

723
00:35:59,120 --> 00:36:01,160
Speaker 1: a lot of pain and she's very angry at the

724
00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,000
Speaker 1: person who put her in that pain. So she goes

725
00:36:04,040 --> 00:36:06,360
Speaker 1: on the offensive and that gets a ton of attention.

726
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:10,239
Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm sure Joey was also on the offensive.

727
00:36:10,360 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 3: He's still denying the whole thing, right.

728
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:15,360
Speaker 1: Yes, And then there's this weird incident where Joey calls

729
00:36:15,440 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 1: the Howard Stern Show while he's like home tending to

730
00:36:18,960 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: marry joe He dials in to say that he was

731
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,759
Speaker 1: never involved with Amy. It's like again reiterating that the

732
00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:29,239
Speaker 1: affair is a lie, and he announces how much he

733
00:36:29,320 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: loved his wife and was innocent and not involved in

734
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:36,440
Speaker 1: the shooting and that she was like hallucinating these allegations

735
00:36:36,480 --> 00:36:40,640
Speaker 1: against him. And then there's also another weird detail that

736
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,200
Speaker 1: I found Apparently, at some point or recovering Mary, joe

737
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,480
Speaker 1: says to Howard Stern that her sex life with Joey

738
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:48,319
Speaker 1: is better than ever.

739
00:36:50,239 --> 00:36:51,879
Speaker 3: I don't know how to react to that. I don't

740
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 3: know how to, and it's just so sad. It's just sad.

741
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,040
Speaker 3: It's like that Howard Stern is disgusting Joe, but if

742
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,600
Speaker 3: it goes disgusting Mary jo is clearly a victim. Like

743
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,120
Speaker 3: poor Mary Joe, Amy, as we will learn, is a

744
00:37:05,160 --> 00:37:06,440
Speaker 3: victim in many ways too.

745
00:37:06,320 --> 00:37:09,520
Speaker 1: Like ugh, I think there is kind of this publicity

746
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:11,360
Speaker 1: war that's going on right that they're each kind of

747
00:37:11,360 --> 00:37:14,960
Speaker 1: trying to get their narrative or their version. Each side

748
00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:17,080
Speaker 1: is kind of trying to play the press to their

749
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,120
Speaker 1: advantage in some ways. And in addition to her having

750
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,279
Speaker 1: sold her story for bail money, the Betafucos also have

751
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:24,799
Speaker 1: a lot of bills to pay. I mean, she did

752
00:37:24,840 --> 00:37:27,919
Speaker 1: just go through this real terrible medical situation, so they

753
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:31,719
Speaker 1: also sell their story. So everyone's kind of contributing to

754
00:37:31,840 --> 00:37:35,520
Speaker 1: this wild atmosphere. And I think the fact that Mary

755
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: Joe is so defensive of Joey that she's like, I

756
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,480
Speaker 1: would castrate him if he had really done this, Like

757
00:37:40,880 --> 00:37:44,120
Speaker 1: she is becoming kind of her own character in the story.

758
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:48,160
Speaker 1: Then there are these, like other stories about Amy that

759
00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:50,799
Speaker 1: come out. There's another ex boyfriend that comes forward and

760
00:37:50,840 --> 00:37:53,839
Speaker 1: claims that she asked him for a gun there's another man,

761
00:37:54,000 --> 00:37:56,880
Speaker 1: an next boyfriend of Amy, an ex boyfriend of Amy's.

762
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,959
Speaker 1: There's another man that says Amy paid him with cash

763
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: and blowjobs to watch the buta Fuco house. And they

764
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 1: do eventually track down the guy who drove her to

765
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: the Butafuco house the day she shot Mary Joe, and

766
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:11,719
Speaker 1: he says she paid him eight hundred bucks to get

767
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: her the gun and to drive her there.

768
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 3: And probably all of these people are independently selling their

769
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:18,560
Speaker 3: stories to the press at the same time.

770
00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of that going on. But

771
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:23,440
Speaker 1: I think a phenomenon we're very familiar with now is

772
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:26,839
Speaker 1: that when a story becomes big, lots of people want

773
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 1: to like kind of attach themselves to it and be

774
00:38:28,880 --> 00:38:30,120
Speaker 1: interviewed in the press about it.

775
00:38:30,200 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 3: Right.

776
00:38:30,400 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 1: It's like when there's a big tragedy, everyone wants to

777
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:35,280
Speaker 1: suddenly be like I was involved, I knew that person.

778
00:38:35,360 --> 00:38:37,600
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's a lot of that going on. Okay,

779
00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 3: So this is all playing out in the summer of

780
00:38:39,360 --> 00:38:42,720
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety two. It's before Amy will ultimately plead guilty

781
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:46,840
Speaker 3: in September. But at this point, what is the prevailing narrative?

782
00:38:47,040 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 3: So because all these stories have come out about her.

783
00:38:49,200 --> 00:38:51,319
Speaker 3: There's all these other men that have come forward, other

784
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,279
Speaker 3: men who claim that they were clients of hers when

785
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:58,200
Speaker 3: she was a sex worker. There is just this torrential

786
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 3: downpour of information that just makes her look bad and

787
00:39:02,239 --> 00:39:04,600
Speaker 3: makes it clear that there's no way that a trial

788
00:39:04,680 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 3: is going to go in her favor. And you know,

789
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:09,440
Speaker 3: she did shoot someone, so fair she pleads guilty to

790
00:39:09,480 --> 00:39:13,240
Speaker 3: one count of reckless assault and that carries a sentence

791
00:39:13,239 --> 00:39:17,920
Speaker 3: of five to fifteen years. But the prosecutor also promises,

792
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:20,800
Speaker 3: as part of this deal, to convene a grand jury

793
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:25,440
Speaker 3: to consider statutory rape charges against Joey Buttafugo, and also

794
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:30,880
Speaker 3: under consideration is a possible murder conspiracy charge because Amy

795
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:33,799
Speaker 3: continues to tell investigators that Joey Betafugo put her up

796
00:39:33,800 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 3: to this shooting. I don't know why I feel like

797
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:35,640
Speaker 3: I need to say.

798
00:39:35,640 --> 00:39:38,279
Speaker 1: It's like whole name every time in this story, it's

799
00:39:38,280 --> 00:39:42,279
Speaker 1: like Amy Fisher and Joey buttafu Goo. That's fun to say, Yeah,

800
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:44,439
Speaker 1: I mean that is why I got so much attention. Also,

801
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:46,560
Speaker 1: his name really did become the punchline of a lot

802
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 1: of jokes. Yeah, But by all accounts, this plea deal

803
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: leaves Amy distraught. It really finally dawns on her that

804
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:58,280
Speaker 1: she's going to go to jail right, that she's actually

805
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,520
Speaker 1: done something horrible and she's about to pay a very

806
00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 1: steep price for it. And she alocutes in a public hearing,

807
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: and she continues to insist that it was an accident,

808
00:40:09,200 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: and the prosecutors are essentially satisfied, and they announced they're

809
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:16,800
Speaker 1: going to go after Joey Buttafuco next, which Mary Joe

810
00:40:16,920 --> 00:40:20,480
Speaker 1: is livid about. She's just absolutely furious that part of

811
00:40:20,520 --> 00:40:24,120
Speaker 1: the plea deal involves anything that might punish Joey Buttafuco.

812
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:28,080
Speaker 1: She's like, we've suffered enough. And then and this is

813
00:40:28,080 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: where we would play ominous music.

814
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:31,879
Speaker 3: Another video of.

815
00:40:31,800 --> 00:40:45,240
Speaker 1: Her, which was recorded without her knowledge, drops.

816
00:40:46,320 --> 00:40:47,080
Speaker 3: Before the break.

817
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: We were talking about how a new video of Amy Fisher,

818
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: recorded without her knowledge, has just come out, and this

819
00:40:54,400 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: time it's her latest boyfriend, a guy named Paul Mayklee,

820
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:04,280
Speaker 1: already unsurprisingly much older than her and the co owner

821
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:07,280
Speaker 1: of a gym where she works out, and he sells

822
00:41:07,280 --> 00:41:10,200
Speaker 1: a videotape he made of her to hard copy. So

823
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:14,920
Speaker 1: the night before she pleads guilty in court, she's really upset.

824
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:19,680
Speaker 1: And her lawyers give her permission to go see this guy, Makeleyka,

825
00:41:19,840 --> 00:41:23,000
Speaker 1: and she visits him at his gym, and he's obviously

826
00:41:23,040 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: setting her up so he can sell it.

827
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 3: It's not a sex.

828
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:29,759
Speaker 1: Tape or whatever we would call the previous tape, which

829
00:41:29,800 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 1: I guess is like revenge porn in today's parlance. In

830
00:41:32,600 --> 00:41:36,120
Speaker 1: this case, she's just talking to him. She's just being

831
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:39,200
Speaker 1: flirtatious with him. You know, this is obviously a girl

832
00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:43,120
Speaker 1: who really needs male attention to feel better, and she's

833
00:41:43,160 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: not feeling good, right, so she's come to see him,

834
00:41:45,760 --> 00:41:50,359
Speaker 1: and she's not expressing any remorse, which obviously is kind

835
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:52,720
Speaker 1: of all anybody wants to see from her at this point.

836
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 1: And it just appears to me like teenage bravado, right,

837
00:41:56,360 --> 00:42:00,319
Speaker 1: She's just clearly trying to get his attention. And at

838
00:42:00,320 --> 00:42:02,600
Speaker 1: one point she asks him to marry her so that

839
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: they can have conjugal visits once she's in prison, and

840
00:42:06,120 --> 00:42:08,480
Speaker 1: she says something that will really haunt her because it

841
00:42:08,520 --> 00:42:12,439
Speaker 1: gets played by the media over and over again, which

842
00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:14,680
Speaker 1: is she says, I figure, if I have to go

843
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: through all this pain and suffering, I'm getting a ferrari,

844
00:42:17,480 --> 00:42:20,080
Speaker 1: meaning like she's going to make all this money from

845
00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:21,520
Speaker 1: this and get a Ferrari. But I mean, this is

846
00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: a girl who's about to go to jail for five

847
00:42:23,280 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: to fifteen years. She's not getting a ferrari. And I

848
00:42:25,560 --> 00:42:27,839
Speaker 1: don't think she thinks she's getting a ferrari. She's just

849
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: gone to blow off some steam during this horrible situation

850
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,719
Speaker 1: in her life. I mean, admittedly brought on by her,

851
00:42:35,920 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 1: but it's just like really sad. Now at the time,

852
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:43,960
Speaker 1: it's seen as evidence that she is a monster and

853
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:49,439
Speaker 1: just this absolute brat with no remorse exactly, and when

854
00:42:49,480 --> 00:42:55,800
Speaker 1: the tape comes out, it devastates her. She cannot believe

855
00:42:55,920 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: that she's been betrayed by yet another man that she trusted.

856
00:43:01,160 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: One of the lawyers who watched the show with her

857
00:43:03,680 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 1: says that she was destroyed by it, that she just

858
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 1: kept saying over and over again, and I loved him,

859
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: I loved him, I loved him, which you know is

860
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: also just a really sad detail because just a year earlier,

861
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 1: she loved Joey Buttafuco so much that she went and

862
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: shot his wife. So it's like she's just so easy

863
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:23,759
Speaker 1: to give away her love or whatever. This is this

864
00:43:23,880 --> 00:43:26,560
Speaker 1: like obsession with men and her need for them to

865
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 1: validate her.

866
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 3: I mean, it is easy to forget that this is

867
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,920
Speaker 3: a child. She's saying these things and they sound disturbing,

868
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 3: but like she's hardly a grown adult.

869
00:43:38,160 --> 00:43:41,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously she doesn't have good coping mechanisms, right,

870
00:43:41,440 --> 00:43:43,799
Speaker 1: I mean, that's very clear from everything I've told you

871
00:43:43,880 --> 00:43:46,919
Speaker 1: so far, and that becomes even more clear. That night,

872
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:51,440
Speaker 1: she makes a first suicide attempt and she's not successful.

873
00:43:51,480 --> 00:43:54,279
Speaker 1: Her mother finds her, but in the afternoon of the

874
00:43:54,280 --> 00:43:57,640
Speaker 1: next day, she makes another attempt, and at that point

875
00:43:57,680 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: her parents realized that she needs to be taken to

876
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:03,280
Speaker 1: the hospital, so they take her to the hospital, and

877
00:44:03,520 --> 00:44:06,359
Speaker 1: her investigator at the time, because I think she has

878
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:09,440
Speaker 1: this whole arsenal, this team of lawyers and investigators that

879
00:44:09,480 --> 00:44:12,799
Speaker 1: are working on our case, says she's been betrayed by

880
00:44:12,880 --> 00:44:16,439
Speaker 1: every man she's ever met, and I think that really

881
00:44:16,480 --> 00:44:19,000
Speaker 1: gets to the heart of the Amy Fisher story. Every

882
00:44:19,040 --> 00:44:23,399
Speaker 1: single man in this story who comes forward betrays her

883
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:24,400
Speaker 1: in some way.

884
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 3: And we will soon learn that includes her father.

885
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:30,680
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's around this suicide attempt that the first

886
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 1: allegation she makes about her father becomes public because, in

887
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:38,480
Speaker 1: addition to selling this tape of her. Paul also sells

888
00:44:38,719 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: this audio recording he received from her. It's kind of

889
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,600
Speaker 1: like an audio letter, I guess. And in it she says,

890
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:50,120
Speaker 1: in this like really soft wounded voice, I just don't

891
00:44:50,160 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: understand why my mom ever had me. I mean, she

892
00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:55,600
Speaker 1: let my father do such terrible things to me, and

893
00:44:55,640 --> 00:44:57,799
Speaker 1: I feel like she just looked the other way. She

894
00:44:57,840 --> 00:44:59,160
Speaker 1: didn't do anything to stop it.

895
00:44:59,480 --> 00:45:00,600
Speaker 3: What's the response to that?

896
00:45:00,760 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 1: So the response is interesting because she immediately backtracks when

897
00:45:05,239 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 1: it becomes public, right, she never thought this was going

898
00:45:07,320 --> 00:45:10,239
Speaker 1: to be made public. When it is, she denies it.

899
00:45:10,320 --> 00:45:14,240
Speaker 1: She says it's just because he's a strict father. It's

900
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:17,319
Speaker 1: pretty clear that there's more to it than that, but

901
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:20,680
Speaker 1: that is what she says at the time, and for

902
00:45:20,719 --> 00:45:23,839
Speaker 1: the most part, she's never really addressed it or gone

903
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:28,320
Speaker 1: into any details. But she's in such bad shape after

904
00:45:28,360 --> 00:45:31,799
Speaker 1: the release of this videotape and this audio tape that

905
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:35,960
Speaker 1: when she's released from the hospital, she voluntarily asks to

906
00:45:36,000 --> 00:45:39,000
Speaker 1: be returned to prison so she can wait in prison

907
00:45:39,120 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 1: for her sentencing, so that she can avoid the media circus.

908
00:45:42,200 --> 00:45:44,240
Speaker 3: So she asks to return to prison.

909
00:45:44,400 --> 00:45:48,080
Speaker 1: Yes, she goes to prison months before her actual sentencing

910
00:45:48,160 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 1: is supposed to happen because.

911
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:51,160
Speaker 3: To get away, oh literally, to.

912
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:53,319
Speaker 1: Get away from the media, literally, to get away from

913
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:56,000
Speaker 1: this thing that she's just become so much bigger than

914
00:45:56,040 --> 00:45:58,520
Speaker 1: her that she clearly cannot manage for herself.

915
00:45:58,880 --> 00:46:01,960
Speaker 3: That's crazy, isn't that. I mean that, honestly is the

916
00:46:02,000 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 3: most surprising or telling detail to me so far is

917
00:46:06,400 --> 00:46:10,920
Speaker 3: that she has determined that being in jail is actually

918
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:14,480
Speaker 3: a better place for her voluntarily than being in the

919
00:46:14,520 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 3: outside world. I mean, it's like, in a matter of

920
00:46:16,800 --> 00:46:19,960
Speaker 3: four months from June to I think this is now September,

921
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,640
Speaker 3: she's gone from being a high school student clearly there

922
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:26,960
Speaker 3: was sortid stuff happening behind that, to voluntarily going to

923
00:46:27,000 --> 00:46:29,800
Speaker 3: prison so she doesn't have to face the outside world. Yeah.

924
00:46:29,880 --> 00:46:33,720
Speaker 1: It really does tell you a lot about how difficult

925
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:34,640
Speaker 1: her mental.

926
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 3: Well not just even her mental health, but her the

927
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,680
Speaker 3: spectacle of the media, Like the media was that bad

928
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:42,680
Speaker 3: that she thought she had to go into jail to

929
00:46:43,320 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 3: escape them. But on top of that, as you have said,

930
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 3: throughout everyone in her life is coming forward to sell

931
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:51,160
Speaker 3: a story in one way or another.

932
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:55,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the contrast is what happens to Joey, which

933
00:46:55,200 --> 00:46:57,399
Speaker 1: is you know not much.

934
00:46:57,480 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 3: I mean, what does happen to Joey?

935
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: The official final chapter of the story is that Joey

936
00:47:02,640 --> 00:47:05,920
Speaker 1: is eventually brought up on charges. He's indicted on nineteen

937
00:47:05,960 --> 00:47:09,400
Speaker 1: counts of statutory rape, sodomy, and endangering the welfare of

938
00:47:09,440 --> 00:47:12,960
Speaker 1: a child, which sounds bad, right, Okay, yeah, but he

939
00:47:13,040 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 1: pleads out and he goes away for one count of

940
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:20,279
Speaker 1: statutory rape. He admits to knowing her age, but only

941
00:47:20,280 --> 00:47:23,600
Speaker 1: admits to having sex with her one time, and has

942
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 1: his lawyer say publicly that he basically only admitted this

943
00:47:27,160 --> 00:47:29,319
Speaker 1: because he was trying to save his family, so he's

944
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:32,040
Speaker 1: still kind of denying it in some weird way. And

945
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:35,239
Speaker 1: he goes to prison for four months. It's compared to

946
00:47:35,360 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 1: Amy's five to fifteen year sentence.

947
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:40,400
Speaker 3: I know we'll get to this later, but she is

948
00:47:40,440 --> 00:47:42,120
Speaker 3: not able to live a normal life.

949
00:47:42,160 --> 00:47:44,879
Speaker 1: No, not at all. And we're definitely going to get

950
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:47,479
Speaker 1: into all of that in part two. But I think

951
00:47:47,560 --> 00:47:50,480
Speaker 1: let's leave it here for now, and there's still so

952
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:52,920
Speaker 1: much more to the story. So to hear the rest

953
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:55,840
Speaker 1: of the Amy Fisher saga and all its twists and turns,

954
00:47:56,239 --> 00:48:03,240
Speaker 1: join us for part two. It's already in your feed, This.

955
00:48:03,120 --> 00:48:05,240
Speaker 3: Is in Retrospect. Thanks for listening.

956
00:48:05,840 --> 00:48:08,320
Speaker 1: Is there a cultural moment you can't stop thinking about

957
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,680
Speaker 1: and want us to explore in a future episode. Email

958
00:48:11,800 --> 00:48:15,120
Speaker 1: us at Inretropod at gmail dot com or find us

959
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:16,839
Speaker 1: on Instagram at in retropod.

960
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,920
Speaker 3: If you love this podcast, please rate and review us

961
00:48:19,960 --> 00:48:22,840
Speaker 3: on Apple or Spotify or wherever you listen. If you

962
00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 3: hate it, you can post nasty comments on our Instagram,

963
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:27,320
Speaker 3: which we may or may not delete.

964
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:30,000
Speaker 1: You can also find us on Instagram at Jessica Bennett

965
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: and at Susi b NYC. Also check out Jessica's books

966
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:36,000
Speaker 1: Feminist Fight Club and This Is eighteen.

967
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 3: In Retrospect is a production of iHeart Podcasts and The Media.

968
00:48:40,160 --> 00:48:43,719
Speaker 3: Lauren Hanson is our supervising producer. Derek Clements is our

969
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 3: engineer and sound designer. Sharon Atcia is our researcher and

970
00:48:47,320 --> 00:48:48,320
Speaker 3: associate producer.

971
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,920
Speaker 1: Our executive producer from the media is Cindy Levy. Our

972
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 1: executive producers from iHeart are Anna Stump and Katrina at Norbel.

973
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:59,439
Speaker 1: Our artwork is from Pentagram. Additional editing help from Mary

974
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:03,759
Speaker 1: Doo and Mike Costparelli. Sound correction and mastering by Amanda Rose.

975
00:49:03,800 --> 00:49:04,080
Speaker 2: Smith.

976
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 3: We are your hosts, Susie Banecarum and Jessica Bennett. We're

977
00:49:08,120 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 3: also executive producers. For even more check out in retropod

978
00:49:12,520 --> 00:49:14,280
Speaker 3: dot com. See you next week.