NEW YORK — Disgraced former congressman and notorious fabulist George Santos pleaded guilty to defrauding his voters, his family and the government in a last-minute plea deal on Monday — accepting the litany of lies that catapulted him to Congress will now send him to prison.

At a hearing in Central Islip Federal Court, where his trial was set to begin in three weeks, Santos, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft, admitting he’d betrayed the trust of his constituents by cheating his way into office through theft and lies. He agreed not to appeal a prison sentence under eight years.

“It’s clear to me now I allowed ambition to cloud my judgment, leading me to make decisions that were unethical,” Santos, who had until Monday decried the case as a “witch hunt,” said outside the courthouse after the hearing. “And pleading guilty is a step I never imagined I’d take, but it is a necessary one because it is the right thing to do.”

In his plea, the embattled ex-lawmaker admitted to stealing the identities of 11 people — including his family — to report tens of thousands of dollars in donations to his campaign without their consent and to stealing other victims’ credit cards and identities to buy himself a designer wardrobe and pay off his credit card and car debt.

Santos also admitted to tricking donors into donating thousands of dollars to a nonprofit that led to his personal bank account, the New York Department of Labor into giving him unemployment benefits at the height of the pandemic while he was working for an investment bank, and the Federal Election Committee into believing he was a multimillionaire.

Santos, who the feds indicted midway through his year in office in May 2023, faces anywhere from two to 22 years in prison when he returns to court on Feb. 7 to be sentenced by Central Islip Federal Judge Joanna Seybert. He’s agreed to pay almost $374,000 in restitution and forfeit more than $205,000.

“Today, for what may seem like the first time since he started his campaign ran for Congress, Mr. Santos told the truth about his criminal schemes. He admitted that he lied, he stole, and he conned people,” Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said at a press conference following Monday’s proceeding.

“Santos’ countless lies and audacious misrepresentations catapulted him to Congress, but for the victims of Santos’ various financial crimes and the community whose falsehoods and fabrications deprived them of honest representation in Congress, he is worthy only of infamy.”

The Long Island and Queens MAGA lawmaker was booted from Congress in December in a historic 311-114 vote less than a year after he was sworn into his freshman term as a U.S. Representative, becoming the first member of Congress to be expelled without being convicted of a crime since the Civil War.

The move came after a damning ethics committee report found “overwhelming evidence” Santos had broken the law and exploited his public position for profit, using stolen cash to pay his bills for OnlyFans, Botox, and various luxury spends.

Months after his indictment, in October, the feds indicted Santos on more charges, and his campaign manager, Nancy Marks, pleaded guilty to conspiring with him to falsify Federal Election Commission filings to make it look like he had raised enough from donors to qualify for financial and logistics support from an unnamed national campaign committee.

Federal prosecutors alleged that Santos lied about nearly every aspect of his life during his successful run for office in 2022. After he was elected, he ignored calls for his resignation as his lies unraveled, and insisted he had never done anything illegal.

The ex-legislator, who abandoned a brief plan to run as an independent after his ouster, was called out for lying when he said his mother was working in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and that he was the descendant of Holocaust refugees. He ultimately admitted to lying about working at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and the colleges he attended.

In a one-two punch, hours before Santos pleaded out, a Manhattan federal court judge threw out Santos’ copyright lawsuit against late-night host Jimmy Kimmel, who Santos sued for pranking him into making videos on Cameo for a skit on Kimmel’s show called “Will Santos Say It?”

Judge Denise Cote determined an exemption in copyright laws protected the videos as they were used for “political commentary and criticism.”