FLINT, MI -- The city's former utilities administrator has struck a plea deal with prosecutors, becoming the third of 15 Flint water crisis defendants to agree to cooperate in other pending cases, including those against officials inside Gov. Rick Snyder's cabinet.

Daugherty Johnson, Flint's former utilities administrator, pleaded no contest Tuesday, Nov. 28, to a misdemeanor public records charge rather than facing two felony charges -- false pretenses and conspiracy to commit false pretenses.

Johnson pleaded no contest to failing to furnish water documents to a Genesee County Health Department employee investigating a possible connection between Flint water and Legionnaires' disease outbreaks.

He is scheduled to return to court in May for sentencing, facing up to one year of imprisonment or a fine of not more than $1,000.

By making the deal, Johnson avoids a Dec. 5 preliminary examination on the felony charges in Genesee District Court.

"The cooperation and assistance Mr. Johnson has given ... has been paramount to cutting open the center of this onion," special prosecutor Todd Flood told Judge Nathaniel Perry.

Johnson, 48, declined to comment after his appearance.

The original charges against him were tied to his role in a process that led to the issuance of bonds to pay for a portion of the Karegnondi Water Authority pipeline project.

Prosecutors have said that city and state officials were only able to borrow millions to pay for a share of the KWA pipeline by claiming the funds would be used to clean up of a lime sludge lagoon where by-products of water treatment were dumped.

A state waiver, required because of Flint's financial emergency at the time, was issued by the Michigan Department of Treasury even though a clause in the state's Home Rule City Act only allowed for borrowing in cases of "fire, flood, or other calamity."

Prosecutors contend that a 15-page Statement of Purpose for an upgrade of Flint's water treatment plant required the city to use the Flint River as an interim water source and the treatment plant as the sanitizing and distribution center.

Charges against Johnson claimed he pressured employees of the plant to get the treatment facility in working order before April of 2014, the time that was targeted for the city to begin using the Flint River for drinking water.

Prosecutors said Johnson and former Flint Department of Public Works Director Howard Croft helped former emergency managers Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley restart the city's water treatment plant for the first time in decades despite warnings from others that it and the employees working at the plant were unprepared.

"When the deadline closed in, rather than sound the alarm, the defendants allegedly ignored warnings and test results and shut off the pipes pulling clean water from Detroit, and turned on the Flint River valves," a statement from the Michigan Attorney General said at the time Johnson was charged in December 2016.

Johnson becomes the third current or former city or state employee to accept a plea agreement for their role in the water crisis.

In May 2016, former water plant operator Mike Glasgow accepted a plea deal, admitting to filing false information about lead in Flint water and agreeing to cooperate in other in prosecutions.

In September 2016, Corrinne Miller, retired director of the state Department of Health and Human Services' Bureau of Epidemiology, pleaded no contest to neglect of duty for her role in the water crisis.