Love-Triangle Defendant Attempts Suicide Twice

NEW YORK - Amy Fisher, the tabloid-dubbed "Long Island Lolita" who has been at the center of a celebrated love-triangle shooting, twice tried to kill herself by overdosing on pills and was hospitalized yesterday.

Attorneys said the 18-year-old was despondent over a secretly made videotape in which she talked about wanting sex in prison and making money from her notorious case.

After the first suicide attempt at her Long Island home Friday night, according to one of the young woman's lawyers, Christine Edwards-Newman, Fisher told her mother, Roseann, "I quit. I don't want to live. It's what they want. I give up."

The second attempt was yesterday afternoon, Edwards-Newman said.

Fisher was in stable condition last night at Huntington Hospital in the intensive-care unit.

Fisher swallowed 10 to 15 Xanax tablets - a tranquilizer prescribed for her by a psychiatrist several weeks ago - late Friday, said Edwards-Newman.

The lawyer said Roseann Fisher realized something was wrong when her daughter began slurring her words, mumbling and rambling. Then the mother found the empty vial in the bathroom.

Fisher's criminal attorney, Eric Naiburg, had said Fisher was devastated by the airing of segments of the videotape on the tabloid TV show "Hard Copy" Friday. Edwards-Newman said the suicide attempts were a direct result of her depression over the video.

Fisher pleaded guilty last week to a reduced charge of first-degree assault in the shooting of Mary Jo Buttafuoco, the wife of her alleged lover, Joey Buttafuoco. After a plea bargain with prosecutors, she faces five to 15 years in prison, instead of the eight to 25 years she would have faced if convicted of attempted murder.

Fisher is to testify before a grand jury this week on allegations of statutory rape against Joey Buttafuoco. He has denied the charge.

The "Hard Copy" video was made with a hidden camera in a South Massapequa, N.Y., gym owned by Fisher's one-time friend, Paul Makely. It showed Fisher asking Makely to marry her so the two could have conjugal visits in prison.

She also talked about wanting to keep her name in the media to make enough money to buy a Ferrari because of the "pain and suffering" she endured as a result of the lurid scandal that has been splashed across the front pages of newspapers and featured on TV.

"Hard Copy" has also been promoting Part 2 of the tape, which will be aired tomorrow, saying that it will reveal a new "secret" that Fisher has carried with her.

Edwards-Newman said Fisher never actually saw the tape.