CHARLOTTE,
N.C. — Former CIA Director David Petraeus, whose career was destroyed
by an extramarital affair with his biographer, was expected to be
sentenced Thursday in federal court in Charlotte for giving her
classified material while she was working on the book.
Petraeus
will appear at the sentencing, which comes two months after he agreed
to plead guilty to a misdemeanor count of unauthorized removal and
retention of classified material.
The
plea agreement carries a possible sentence of up to a year in prison.
In court papers, prosecutors recommended two years of probation and a
$40,000 fine. But the judge is not bound by that and could still impose a
prison sentence.
The
agreement was filed in Charlotte, where Paula Broadwell, the general's
biographer and former lover, lives with her husband and children.
The affair ruined the reputation of the retired four-star Army general who led U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As part of his deal, Petraeus agreed not to contest the set of facts laid out by the government.
Prosecutors
said that while Broadwell was writing her book in 2011, Petraeus gave
her eight binders of classified material he had improperly kept from his
time as the top military commander in Afghanistan. Days later, he took
the binders back to his house.
Among
the secret information contained in the "black books" were the names of
covert operatives, the coalition war strategy and notes about Petraeus'
discussions with President Barack Obama and the National Security
Council, prosecutors said.
Those
binders were later seized by the FBI in an April 2013 search of
Petraeus' Arlington, Virginia, home, where he had kept them in the
unlocked drawer of a desk in a ground-floor study.
Prosecutors
said that after resigning from the CIA in November 2012, Petraeus had
signed a form falsely attesting he had no classified material. He also
lied to FBI agents by denying he supplied the information to Broadwell,
according to court documents.
Petraeus
admitted having an affair with Broadwell when he resigned as CIA
director. Both have publicly apologized and said their romantic
relationship began only after he had retired from the military.
Broadwell's
admiring biography of him, "All In: The Education of David Petraeus,"
came out in 2012, before the affair was exposed.
Petraeus
held the CIA post less than a year, not long enough to leave a
significant mark on the spy agency. The core of his identity has been a
military man.
A
Ph.D. with a reputation as a thoughtful strategist, Petraeus was
brought in by President George W. Bush to command multinational forces
in Iraq in 2007, a period when the war began to turn in favor of the
U.S.
Petraeus'
command coincided with the "surge" of American forces in Iraq and a
plan to pay Sunni militias to fight al-Qaida in Iraq.
With
American help, the Sunni tribes were able to push out insurgents and
enable U.S. troops to withdraw in 2011. Those same Sunni areas are now
controlled by the Islamic State group, which evolved from the remnants
of al-Qaida after Iraqi's Shiite-led government proved weak.
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