In 1981, he ran for Westchester County Executive but was defeated by the incumbent Democrat Alfred DelBello.
[10] On September 12, 1985, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (judges George C. Pratt, Jon O. Newman and Amalya L. Kearse) vacated most of his convictions and the four-years-in-prison sentence.
The appeals court held that Pisani could not be convicted of diverting campaign funds to his personal use, because the law prohibiting this practice was enacted only after the facts of this case happened.
The appeals court upheld a conviction and a suspended sentence for Pisani taking money from an escrow account of one of his clients.
[12] On September 15, 1986, Pisani began to serve his prison term in the Federal Medical Center, Lexington.
In March 1987, he failed a drug test after eating a poppyseed bagel, and was sent to the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York.