TOMS RIVER, NJ – Former Toms River Business Administrator Don Guardian has filed a tort claim against the township and Mayor Maurice “Mo” Hill claiming he was fired because he was gay. Guardian, prior to coming to Toms River Township was Atlantic City’s first openly gay mayor. Being a gay Republican is never an easy task, but now, Guardian is claiming his replacement lead the charge of gay slurs against him.
Lou Amoroso, who was demoted by former Mayor Thomas Kelaher as a business administrator, according to the tort claimed engaged in anti-gay slurs against Guardian, some too vulgar to print.
Amoroso has a trouble past in town hall including being involved in pay to play schemes for political donors and awarding jobs in town hall to political donors.
In emails received by Shore News Network, in one instance, Amoroso promised a street sweeper company, “It will be good for your business if you donate” to the Toms River Republican Club, then that business was awarded a quarter-million-dollar per year contract this year once Amoroso became business administrator.
Former Toms River Mayor Thomas Kelaher would not confirm why he demoted Amoroso, originally other than saying his promotion to business administrator was ‘temporary’.
In the trove of emails received about Amoroso, a detailed criminal-like enterprise that turned sponsorships at Toms River Republican Club fundraisers into lucrative contracts for those corporate sponsors, many outside of Toms River.
Now, Amoroso, a retired State Trooper is being accused of engaging in homophobic rants about Guardian while he served as business administrator. We will be releasing more of the emails in the Amoroso files in the coming weeks as we digest and investigate the connections between Amoroso’s political fundraising and his ties to awarding contracts. Copies of those files will also be turned over to the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office and Attorney General’s Office in the coming weeks.