Amato’s accuser has litigious and calamity prone history
Suzzanne DesMarais. photo via facebook
The woman suing the Monmouth County SPCA and Victor “Buddy” Amato for harassment has a history of suing her employers for sexual harassment and work related injuries.
According to published reports and interviews, Suzzane DesMarais has won a six figure settlement, multiple workers’ compensation claims and disability pay resulting from her employment as a part-time Special Class II police officer in Long Branch and Plumsted.
She suffered two house fires in six years. After the second fire, she raised money in the name of Chaos Foundation, named for her chocolate lab that perished in the fire. The New Jersey Department of Consumer Affairs does not have a Chaos Foundation listed as a registered charity.
DesMarais, represented by the Shrewsbury law firm Shebell and Shebell, filed suit in Monmouth Superior Court on March second. The former police officer, who worked for MCSPCA as an animal control officer, claimed that Amato regularly sent her racist, sexist and homophobic text messages while she was on the job. She claims that after she complained to Amato’s superiors that she stopped receiving work and that no corrective action was taken against Amato. Amato resigned as the SPCA Police Chief after the suit became public through a story on BuzzFeedNews. Garden State Equality, the gay rights advocacy group of which DesMarais is a member, claims it connected her to BuzzFeed to bring public attention to the lawsuit.
Amato seemed to verify the accuracy of the vulgar and bigoted texts revealed in the BuzzFeed report when he told the Asbury Park Press that they were “jokes between a bunch of guys.”
According to published reports and interviews, DesMarias has been down this road before.
Posted: March 15th, 2015 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Monmouth County | Tags: Buddy Amato, George Titko, Long Branch, Long Branch Police Department, MCSPCA, Monmouth County SPCA, Plumsted, Plumsted Police Department, Shebell and Shebell, Shebell and Shebell LLC, Sue DesMarais, Suzzane DesMarais, Victor "Buddy" Amato | 3 Comments »