MTA chaplain loses gig for using placard to park at Home Depot

It was an abuse of higher power.

A Long Island imam was booted from his gig as an MTA chaplain for misusing his official parking placard, agency officials and sources told The Post.

Zameer Sattaur repeatedly left his ride in the lot of a Jericho, LI, Home Depot — sometimes overnight — with his MTA parking placard and badge displayed, sources said.

“I didn’t see anything wrong with it,” an unrepentant Sattaur said on Sunday.

“We were giving them time for free. I was a volunteer.”

Sattaur, 53, began the flagrant placard abuse after he received multiple traffic tickets for an expired registration — but he kept up the ruse once it was renewed, sources said.

But last week a passerby snapped a photo of the abuse and posted it on Facebook — where it quickly came to the MTA’s attention, sources said.

Sattaur was grilled on Sept. 19 and let go on from his volunteer position as one of the MTA’s 73 chaplains who are tasked with providing spiritual support for agency members going through a traumatic event, such as an on-the-job injury, sources said.

The position comes with a parking placard and a badge meant to help chaplains park quickly at hospitals and incident scenes so they can more easily provide counsel to victims.

“When they get it, they are informed of the restrictions on use: Basically, official business only,” said an MTA source. “These are our official credentials that were displayed in a manner that allowed them to be potentially stolen.”

Sattaur acknowledged he’d been told the placard abuse was a security risk, but claimed there was nothing wrong with treating the hardware giant’s lot as his own.

“They said it was dangerous, what I’ve done. If someone stole the car, they would have been able to access the train [for] free,” he said. “I didn’t understand because it’s not a paid parking spot. I didn’t know.”

In the brief conversation outside his home — which included enough on-premises parking for at least three cars — Sattaur didn’t explain why he felt the need to keep parking in the lot, before asking that further questions be run through his lawyer.

“All volunteers are informed when they join the chaplain service that placards and MTA identification are for official use only,” said MTA spokesman Tim Minton.

“The chaplain acknowledged he placed a parking placard and official identification on the dashboard of his personal vehicle while on a personal matter.”

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