Former CIA director David Petraeus on Tuesday pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count after admitting he had given highly classified information to his mistress and lied about it to the federal investigators, the Los Angeles Times reported.

In exchange for his plea, prosecutors agreed not to charge the retired four-star Army general–who was once seen as a formidable presidential contender–with more serious crimes, such as obstruction of justice and lying to the FBI, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The classified information prosecutors say Petraeus forwarded was a part of eight handwritten journals he gave to Paula Broadwell, who at the time was both his biographer and mistress.

The general left his job at the CIA after the affair with Broadwell became public. But two weeks before the scandal broke, he told FBI agents he had never given the woman classified material, according to court documents released Tuesday.

"(Those) statements were false," prosecutors said in the court documents, according to CNN. "Defendant David Howell Petraeus then and there knew that he previously shared the 'black books' with his biographer."

The notebooks in question apparently date from the time when Petraeus commanded coalition troops in Afghanistan, CNN noted. The information contained in the 5-by-8-inch black journals included the identities of covert officers, war strategy, notes from diplomatic and national security meetings and security code words, the news channel detailed.

Petraeus has agreed to pay a $40,000 fine, and prosecutors said they would recommend he receive probation instead of prison time, according to the Los Angeles Times. His plea amounts to "perhaps the final chapter in the dramatic disgrace of a modern military hero," the newspaper judged. Whether Broadwell will face charges, meanwhile, is unclear.

The 62-year-old is not the first former CIA chief to face charges over restricted information, the Washington Post noted. John Deutch, who led the spy agency from May 1995 to December 1996, resigned when it was discovered that he had stored highly classified materials on his home computer, which was connected to the Internet.

Deutch similarly agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $5,000 fine. But President Bill Clinton pardoned him on his last day in office before prosecutors could file the papers in federal court, the newspaper recalled.