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Former CIA chief, described as one of the finest military leaders of his generation, was fined after pleading guilty to disclosing classified information

Former CIA director David Petraeus was sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine but was spared prison time on Thursday after pleading guilty to mishandling classified information.

Petraeus, a decorated four-star general and the most revered commander of his generation, pleaded guilty in Charlotte, North Carolina, for giving the information to his mistress, who was writing his biography. He agreed under a plea deal to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.

In a statement following sentencing, acting US Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose said that Petraeus “admitted to the unauthorised removal and retention of classified information and lying to the FBI and CIA about his possession and handling of classified information.

“Petraeus was sentenced to a two-year probationary term and was ordered to pay a $100,000 fine.”

U.S. Magistrate Judge David Keesler raised the fine from the $40,000 that had been recommended to the maximum possible financial penalty for that charge, noting it needed to be higher to be punitive and reflect the gravity of the offense.

“This constitutes a serious lapse of judgment,” Keesler said during the hour-long hearing.

The guilty plea ended an embarrassing chapter for a man described in letters to the court as one of the finest military leaders of his generation. Petraeus, 62, a counter-insurgency expert with a Princeton University doctorate, served stints as the top U.S. commander in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and was once considered a possible vice presidential or presidential candidate.

He resigned from the CIA in 2012 after it was revealed that he was having an affair with the biographer, Army Reserve officer Paula Broadwell. She was writing his biography at the time he disclosed the classified information to her.

David Petraeus and Paula Broadwell

Dressed in a dark suit and blue tie, he showed no emotion as he read from a prepared statement in court.

“Today marks the end of a two-and-a-half year ordeal that resulted from mistakes that I made,” he told reporters after the sentencing. “As I did in the past, I apologize to those closest to me and many others.”

“As I did in the past, I apologise to those closest to me and many others, including those with whom I was privileged to serve in government and in the military over the years,” he said.

“I want to take this opportunity also to thank those who have expressed and demonstrated support for me as I have sought to move forward since November of 2012.”

The five-by-eight-inch notebooks were meant to serve as source material for Broadwell’s book about the general, “All In: The Education of General David Petraeus.”

They included Petraeus’s daily schedule, classified notes, the identities of covert officers, details about US intelligence capabilities, code words and accounts of his meetings with President Barack Obama, according to court documents.

The black books contained “Top Secret” and “national defense information,” they said.

Instead of providing the notebooks to the Defense Department historian, Petraeus kept the notebooks in a rucksack, he told Broadwell in a conversation that she recorded. “They are highly classified, some of them… I mean there’s code word stuff in there,” the general told her.

Petraeus later emailed Broadwell promising to give her the notebooks, and personally delivered them to a residence where she was staying in Washington. He retrieved the black books a few days later and kept them at his home.

In October 2012, FBI agents questioned Petraeus at CIA headquarters while he was still director. The retired general, who resigned a month later, told them he had never provided any secret information to Broadwell — a lie that he acknowledged in his plea deal.

Passing the sensitive information to Broadwell and then keeping the notebooks at his home clearly violated his legal obligation to safeguard classified information, authorities said.