NEW YORK — Republican fraudster George Santos, whose congressional career famously collapsed under the staggering weight of his lies and criminal schemes, was sentenced to more than seven years in prison Friday in a Long Island courtroom for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

The sentence marks the end of a staggering fall for the disgraced Queens politician, who broke down in tears in Central Islip federal court when Judge Joanna Seybert announced the length of his prison term.

Santos, wearing a gray suit with a blue sweater and tie, was also ordered to pay $373,749 in restitution to his victims, and $205,002.07 in forfeiture, which will also go to his victims, prosecutors said. He was told to surrender to the court on July 25.

“I offer my deepest apologies,” Santos said in a statement inside the courtroom. “I take responsibility for my actions. I was wrong ... ” he said, wiping his eyes.

“I can’t rewrite the past but I can control the road ahead.”

Seybert countered by asking, “Where’s your remorse? Where do I see it?

“Mr. Santos, words have consequences,” she added, noting it was his lies that got him elected to Congress. “I have sympathy for you ... what are you gonna do the next decade of your life?” she asked.

“You’re a bright man, Mr. Santos. There is no reason why you have to commit crimes to support yourself.”

Santos nodded while crying as his attorney Andrew Mancilla put his hand on Santos’ back to comfort him.

Santos received the full sentence of 87 months that prosecutors were seeking for a string of scams, including stealing the identities of 11 people to falsely report tens of thousands of dollars in donations to his campaign, using his donors’ credit card information to buy designer clothes and pay personal debts, and tricking donors into giving to a nonprofit that led to his personal bank account.

His lawyers, citing a litany of childhood and personal problems including mental illness, had asked for the mandatory minimum of two years.

Outside the courthouse, John Durham, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Santos had engaged in a “brazen crime spree” in which he cheated and lied to a litany of victims that included political supporters, constituents, the Republican Party, Congress and several government agencies.

“From the moment he declared his candidacy for Congress, Santos leveraged his campaign for his own enrichment and financial benefit,” Durham said. “He did this by targeting specific supporters and constituents. He saw them as easy marks, and he made them victims of his fraud. Santos’ victims were real people, and they suffered real losses. He went so far as to seek out elderly people who suffered from cognitive impairment and dementia.

“But today, finally, Santos has been held accountable for his years of fraud, deceit and theft. He’s going to federal prison, and he’s going to be punished for his staggering fraud and the abuses he put on our electoral process.”

Santos, 36, became a national punchline within weeks of his 2022 election to the House of Representatives, when The New York Times started pulling on the threads of his personal biography.

His numerous fabrications including claims that he graduated from Baruch College and attended New York University, and that he was once employed by Citigroup and Goldman Sachs. At one point he said he was Jewish and that his grandparents fled the Holocaust, but that claim also fell apart under scrutiny.

But Santos’ fantasy-filled profile became a criminal matter in 2023, when federal prosecutors indicted him on a long list of charges. From the start, legal experts described prosecutors’ case as a slam dunk.

The House of Representatives expelled him in December 2023, and in August, Santos pleaded guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, three weeks before he was set to go to trial.

In a letter to Seybert, Santos’ lawyers laid out a very different biography than the one he tried to sell to voters and campaign donors.

“His father had ‘high drinking proclivities’ and his mother gambled frequently, his lawyers wrote, and the two divorced in 2000. He moved to Brazil with his mother and sister after fourth grade, and when he returned to New York, he attended William Cullen Bryant High School in Queens for just a month in 2004, before leaving because he “was being bullied by older students,” his lawyers wrote. He got a high school equivalency diploma in 2006.

His lawyers also described Santos’ struggle with mental illness, including a voluntary committal in 2013 or 2014, and touched on problems with alcohol consumption.

But federal prosecutors countered last week that Santos’ social media activity shows “he remains unrepentant for his crimes.”

They pointed out an April 4 post on X where he wrote, “No matter how hard the DOJ comes for me, they are mad because they will NEVER break my spirit.”

In even more posts, he called himself a “scapegoat” and said Department of Justice officials “refuse to prosecute the cabal of pedophiles running around in every power structure in the world including the U.S. government.”

Santos tried to explain himself in an over-the-top letter to the judge Saturday.

“Every sunrise since that plea has carried the same realization: I did this, me. I am responsible,” he wrote. “But saying I’m sorry doesn’t require me to sit quietly while these prosecutors try to drop an anvil on my head.”

One of Santos’ victims wasn’t swayed by his teary apologies, calling it “crocodile tears.”

“That wasn’t real. He’s not remorseful,” said Richard Osthoff, 49, a veteran who has accused Santos of raising $3,000 for his sick dog Sapphire, then stealing the money. The dog later died when she couldn’t get the life-saving surgery, Osthoff claims.

“He’s crying because he knows he’s getting bitten in the a-- and he’s got to go away now,” said Osthoff, who had earlier lunged at the Jeep SUV Santos was escorted away in, yelling, “You killed my dog ... F--- you!”

“That’s the only reason he had any tears in his eyes. It’s fake, like everything else about him.”

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