THE indomitable, indestructible Dominic Barbara wants you to know that the only thing from Amy Fisher that ever touched his client Mary Jo Buttafuoco was a bullet.
“And then last week, they tried to make their first physical contact,” Barbara says.
Mary Jo recalls that as Amy Fisher was about to make her statement to the court, she reached out to the womanchild who tried to blow her head off.
“I reached out and she reached out to touch me but a court officer pulled me back as I tried to hold her hand,” Mary Jo told me.
“What did they think, I was going to crush her hand? I said my piece and as difficult as it was, and as long as it took, I forgave her. Forget? No. Forgive? Yes. It is all part of the process.”
So, Dominic Barbara told me yesterday: “You see? They have never physically touched each other.
“They’ve never physically spoken to each other since that day on May 19, 1992 when Mary Jo collapsed in a pool of blood, looked like she was dying and made one the great medical recoveries of the world.”
So, what’s the point?
“Obvious,” he said with the aplomb of a lawyer who has become the bad boy millionaire lawyer of New York.
“You don’t think there are publishers out there who want to do the follow up of their first meeting?
“You don’t think there are television producers who want to record for the camera the first time they touch?
“I mean considering the circumstances, it’s not every day that a woman embraces in friendship someone who wanted to blow her head off.”
Mary Jo had been talking to me about what it took to get up in court and say: “It’s over … After I got it off my chest, there was a strange feeling. I felt so sorry for her. This kid who had been abused in every way imaginable.
“Hey, I would rather not have a bullet in my head. But a lot of anger sort of left me.
“She was just a poor kid who needed a lot of help, and her mother Rose had gone through so much and had tried so hard. And we are both mothers.”
After three made-for-TV movies does this story have any legs left?
“Well, what Amy went through in prison is a whole new chapter.
“What Joey and Mary Jo had to do to readjust to some very tough times is another story.
“This is all about human relations, good, bad, frightening, troubling. But in the end, good won over.
“Now, it is up to Amy’s lawyer Bruce Barket, Amy and her family to say if they want to do a major deal. But it is another way to put closure to this.”
What about the fabled Son Of Sam law, enacted to prevent anyone profiting from a crime?
“Profits have to first go to a victim unless a victim waives that right,” Barbara said.
“I think when the right time comes, the country wants to see these two people touch in friendship and forgiveness.
“It was one of the biggest human dramas in New York City. It was sad, it was brutal, it was heartbreaking.
“But that is what drama is all about.”