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Ashley Elizabeth Fisher (born August 21, 1974), dubbed the "Long Island Lolita" by the press, is an American woman convicted of the 1992 shooting of the wife of her lover, with whom she began an affair as a 16 year-old student at Kennedy High School in Bellmore, New York. Fisher served seven years in prison for aggravated assault, and was released in 1999. The case drew a great deal of media attention, and Fisher has become a writer since that time.
Fisher was born in Merrick, New York to an Italian American mother and a Jewish American father. Fisher (then aged 16) met Joey Buttafuoco in May 1991, when she took her car to his auto shop for repairs, shortly after which they began a sexual affair. In August 1991, when Fisher needed money, Joey set her up to work with an escort agency, and the torrid affair continued while Fisher was apparently working as a prostitute. (On June 27, 2007, Fisher claimed on The Howard Stern Show that she lied about being a prostitute.) Fisher apparently asked Joey to leave his wife, Mary Jo, who knew nothing of their relationship but he refused.
On May 19, 1992, Fisher, then aged 17, had an accomplice drive her to the Buttafuoco home in Massapequa, New York. She got out of the car and rang the doorbell. When Mary Jo Buttafuoco answered the door Fisher shot her in the head on the front porch. Mary Jo was severely injured, paralysed on the right side of her face, but survived and was able to describe a t-shirt from her husband`s auto body shop that her assailant had been wearing. Joey realized the shooter was Fisher, to whom he had given the shirt as a gift, and identified her to the police.
The crime and the back story drew a great deal of interest from the press. A movie production company offered the Fisher family $80,000 for the movie rights, which was accepted and then used to post bail. The situation would have made the money eligible for seizure under New York`s Son of Sam law though it was not invoked.
Fisher was charged with multiple counts including attempted murder but pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault and in December 1992 was sentenced to 5 - 15 years in prison.
Based on a signed receipt from a Long Island hotel dated a matter of days before Fisher`s 17th birthday Joey Buttafuoco was charged with statutory rape and was convicted in October 1993, serving four months in jail for the crime.
Fisher served her prison sentence at the Albion Correctional Facility in New York. During her time at Albion Fisher claimed she was raped by a correctional officer at the prison; she began a legal case against the guard and requested to be moved to a different prison. After pursuing the case for some time she eventually dropped it after several legal setbacks, claiming she no longer had faith the system would do anything to help her. (Rape charges against guards at the prison by other inmates in subsequent years did lead to a series of successful convictions, however.)
In 1999, after seven years in prison, Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon consented to the vacating of Fisher`s original plea bargain and a new plea entered with a 3-10 year sentence, ensuring her immediate release. (This legal motion was done pursuant to the wishes of Mary Jo Buttafuoco.) Fisher was granted parole and released.
After her release from prison Fisher became a columnist for the Long Island Press, winning a Media Award for Column/News from the Society of Pr
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