He was born on September 1, 1940. He was elected Essex County
Surrogate as a Democrat in 1971, defeating Republican incumbent Thomas R. Farley, and was re-elected in 1976 and 1981. He won by over 12,000 votes. He was elected as the
Essex County, New Jersey Executive in 1987 and he worked to block payments of around $500,000 that were to awarded as bonuses to the outgoing aides of former executive
Peter Shapiro. Once in office Amato dismissed five section chiefs from the Essex County Counsel's office. The dismissed employees filed a lawsuit declaring that they were illegally fired. They asked the court for reinstatement, back pay, accrued vacation time, and the payment of a
year-end bonus of around $3,000. He appointed Robert J. Jackson to the Essex County Department of Public Works. In 1989 as
Essex County, New Jersey Executive, and as part of a bipartisan team of Essex County legislators he introduced "model legislation that would pool rental security deposits to create funds at below-market rates for building low-income housing ... The proposed legislation would establish a tenant-landlord bank for the millions of dollars in rental security deposits held on apartments throughout Essex County." In 1991 he became the
executive director of the New Jersey
Casino Reinvestment Development Authority. In 2008 he resigned as
general counsel of
Resorts International. ==References==