Washington (CNN) Gen. David Petraeus, once a widely celebrated military leader who oversaw operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and was touted as a potential presidential candidate, was sentenced to serve two years on probation and to pay an $100,000 fine on Thursday for sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell.

"Today marks the end of a two-and-a-half-year ordeal," Petraeus said outside the Charlotte federal courthouse following his sentencing. "I now look forward to moving on with the next phase of my life."

Petraeus, who resigned as director of the Central Intelligence Agency in November 2012 after the relationship became public, avoided jail time as part of a plea deal. Prosecutors agreed to not send Petraeus to jail because the classified information was never released to the public or published in the biography of him that Broadwell wrote.

Some of his supporters believe that he can recover his reputation -- and argue in some ways, he already has.

"I don't want to wallow in 2012, and luckily neither has he," said Michael O'Hanlon, a close friend of Petraeus and a scholar at the Brookings Institution.

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