The Town of Oyster Bay has racked up $387,000 in outside legal fees defending a federal lawsuit over denying a mosque's expansion plan in Bethpage, records obtained by Newsday show.

Muslims on Long Island, the owners of the Masjid Al-Baqi mosque on Central Avenue, sued Oyster Bay in January, alleging the town violated federal religious land use laws by rejecting its bid to roughly triple its footprint.

The law firm — Rosenberg Calica Birney Liebman & Ross LLP — has billed Oyster Bay approximately $387,000 from late January through August, according to town billing records obtained through the state's Freedom of Information Law. The records show that through August, the town paid more than $222,000 to the firm.

Oyster Bay hired the firm for its experience handling land-use cases, accor

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