He was once given an award for arresting Superstorm Sandy looters. Now he’s headed to prison for his own Superstorm Sandy greed.

Former Hoboken Police Officer Nikola Lulaj, 45, who fraudulently collected $187,000 in relief funds after the once-in-a-lifetime storm, was sentenced Monday to five years in prison, state Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal announced. His wife, Majlinda Lulaj, 32, was sentenced to three years of probation, conditioned upon completion of 50 hours of community service.

The couple was convicted on Oct. 25 of second-degree conspiracy, second-degree theft by deception, and six counts of fourth-degree unsworn falsification. Lulaj and his wife, who appeared Monday before Superior Court Judge James M. Blaney in Ocean County, was ordered to pay full restitution.

They falsely claimed in relief fund applications that a home they own on Webster Avenue in Seaside Heights, which was damaged by Superstorm Sandy, was their primary residence at the time Sandy struck in late October 2012. They have since moved to the home in Seaside Heights, but at the time their primary residence was in Dumont.

As a result of the fraudulent applications, the couple received $2,820 from FEMA, $90,200 in Small Business Administration loan proceeds, a $69,054 Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation grant, a $10,000 Homeowner Resettlement Program grant, and a $15,000 Sandy Homeowner and Renter Assistance Program grant.

As a result of Lulaj’s conviction, he forfeited his job as an officer with the Hoboken Police Department. In 2013, at the city’s police awards ceremony, he and another officer were cited for arresting two looters who ransacked a convenience store at Third and Madison streets on Oct. 31, 2012 during the blackout and flooding that followed the storm.

“For a police officer to commit this type of fraud is particularly egregious, because officers take an oath to uphold the law and we rightly hold them to the highest standards,” Grewal said in a statement. “When disaster strikes, we cannot allow dishonest applicants to divert disaster relief funds from the intended recipients – namely, those victims whose primary homes were destroyed or damaged.”

The Attorney General’s Office has charged more 120 people with fraud in excess of $8 million related to Sandy relief programs, with most of the cases involve “primary residence fraud” of the type committed by Nikola and Majlinda Lulaj.

“We have recovered well over $2 million through these prosecutions and have delivered a strong message that should deter this type of fraud during future disaster recovery efforts,” Veronica Allende, director of the division of criminal justice, said in a statement. “I commend our trial team for securing the verdict and these sentences, and I thank all of our law enforcement partners for their excellent work in these historic anti-fraud efforts.”