The Long Island town that hired a traffic expert who later admitted in court that his personal views could be seen as bigoted has fired the consultant and backtracked on its previous defense of him.
Jeffrey Buckholz was terminated by the Town of Oyster Bay just hours after The Post exposed his long-string of hateful and anti-Muslim LinkedIn posts, and his sworn admission that he could be considered a bigot under oath, according to town officials and court records.
Buckholz, was hired by town officials to study traffic around a local mosque in a long-standing lawsuit battle between Oyster Bay and the Muslims of Long Island group, which wants to expand a mosque in Bethpage.
“We are shocked and outraged to learn of this, and are immediately dismissing him from this case,” Oyster Bay Supervisor Joseph Saladino said Thursday.
During his Oct. 3 deposition in the federal suit filed by the Muslim group against the town, Buckholz admitted that his views on Muslims and immigrants could be considered bigoted, according to the official transcript.
He also doubled down on the racist social media posts that littered over on his professional LinkedIn, according to the court transcript.
The posts included liking one that said “Muslims can f–k off,” commenting that “they want to conquer us” under a post about Mayor Eric Adams declaring Prophet Muhammad’s birthday a holiday, and joking “gators gotta eat too” under a post about migrants in Alligator Alcatraz, according to court docs and screenshots of his social media obtained by The Post.
Under oath, Buckholz said he opposed “importing outside cultures into the United States,” which he called a “Christian nation,” described the Islamic call to prayer as “atrocious,” and claimed New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani poses “a bigger threat to New York than the 9/11 hijackers,” according to his sworn deposition.
But Saladino’s statement of outrage sharply contrasts the town’s own comment from just a day earlier — in which Town Attorney Frank Scalera fiercely defended Buckholz.
Before The Post’s report, Scalera blasted MOLI’s motion to have the so-called expert’s traffic analysis tossed and bar him from testifying on the basis that he is tainted with bias as a “foreign-based law firm attempting to turn this local land-use case into a political spectacle.”
Scalera also accused the group’s Linklaters attorneys of “dirty tactics” and “dragging President Trump’s name, immigration policies, and core American values” into the case, calling it a “frivolous” attempt to pressure the town into approving the mosque’s expansion.
Now, less than 24 hours later, those same officials are walking back their defense and distancing themselves from Buckholz, claiming they were unaware of his racist posts or deposition remarks until they were made public.
The town’s reversal adds yet another twist to the years-long federal discrimination case, which has already seen the Justice Department intervene on behalf of MOLI and Oyster Bay officials admit under oath to creating a fake grandma witness while changing zoning laws to target non-Christian houses of worship.
“We welcome the Town’s decision to withdraw Mr. Buckholz,” Linklaters attorney Muhammad Faridi told The Post.
“His open prejudice epitomized the bias that has tainted this process from the start. His involvement made clear that this case has never been about legitimate land-use concerns — it has been about discrimination and poor judgment,” he added.
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