More than two years after dumping a swarm of insects on commuters jammed into a packed, rush-hour D train, the woman behind the stunt has finally pleaded guilty.
Zaida Pugh admitted Monday to the skin-crawling caper, and will enroll in a non-jail treatment program.
Pugh unnerved train riders across the city when she flung some 600 crickets and mealworms across the D train as it barreled across the Manhattan Bridge in August 2016.
The bugs terrified one straphanger so much the person pulled the emergency brake, stranding the train in the middle of the bridge for almost an hour — during which Pugh peed on the floor of the train.
The 23-year-old faced up to a year behind bars before she pleaded guilty Monday to reckless endangerment.
Dressed in a sweatsuit, she remained largely silent during the proceeding, mumbling “yes” when Judge Elizabeth Warin asked if she did, in fact, release “a jar of insects on an occupied subway train.”
As part of the plea deal, Pugh will enroll in the Women’s Prison Association JusticeHome program, which works to “enhance stability and overall well-being” of defendants, according to its website.
Attorney Michelle Riedel of Brooklyn Defender Services said her client had already been participating in the program.
Pugh previously told reporters that she’d been pretending to sell the bugs in order to raise awareness of homelessness and mental illness.
“I do feel sorry how it actually got to the point that it did,” she told The Post. “My biggest regret is the bugs — how far they went and how hard they were hit. And then there’s the emergency brake. That just made everyone panic even more. It wasn’t supposed to go that way.”