Topeka ? A former Topeka police officer who once faced 144 mostly job-related criminal counts has pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor offenses.

“It’s a great relief it’s finally over with and I can go on with my life,” Bruce Voight, 42, said after Thursday’s proceeding in Shawnee County District Court.

Now retired, Voigt was a police officer for 18 years, serving some of that time as a narcotics investigator.

He was charged in September 2005 following an 18-month investigation of the department’s narcotics unit by the county prosecutor and the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

The initial 144 counts included perjury, falsifying evidence, official misconduct, theft and promoting obscenity. But the number of charges dwindled after a series of hearings and were dropped completely in May 2006.

Prosecutors filed new charges, however, and Voigt pleaded no contest Thursday to one misdemeanor count each of obstruction of official duty and dissemination of a criminal history record.

In return, the Shawnee County district attorney dropped 10 felony counts on which Voigt had faced trial Jan. 29.

Voigt’s former partner in the narcotics unit, Thomas Pfortmiller, was sentenced to 16 months in prison after he pleaded no contest in July 2005 to 50 felonies that included theft, forgery and official misconduct.

Tom Lemon, Voigt’s defense lawyer, said Thursday the obstruction charge to which Voigt pleaded stemmed from incomplete information he gave a KBI agent who interviewed him in October 2004 about the allegations against Pfortmiller.

In the criminal history count, Voigt provided a copy of a restricted law enforcement record in November 2004 to a woman who was trying to find out whether her misdemeanor battery conviction had been expunged from her record, Lemon said. It hadn’t been, and it later was expunged in Shawnee County District Court.

Minutes after Voigt entered his pleas, District Judge Richard Anderson fined him $750 for the obstruction conviction and $250 for the criminal history conviction. No jail time was imposed. The maximum penalties were one year in jail on each count and two fines of $2,500 each.

In sentencing Voigt, Anderson said he “carefully considered” the matter and didn’t find that a jail sentence would serve the public interest or help Voigt. The “shame and humiliation he must feel” is adequate punishment, Anderson said, referring to the charges Voigt faced.