Submarine.Photo: HANDOUT/US NAVY/AFP via Getty
A suburban Maryland man has pleaded guiltyfour months after being arrestedin what federal prosecutors described asan elaborate espionage plotinvolving hidden devices and nuclear secrets.
Now, it appears the disgraced nuclear engineer has split from his wife, who was also arrested when authorities say their alleged conspiracy unraveled.
Jonathan and Diana Toebbe were arrested in October after Jonathan, the engineer who was working for the U.S. Navy, attempted to send restricted information to a foreign government.
The couple was taken into custody nearly a year after prosecutors allege Jonathan — with Diana’s help — began sending information “concerning the design of nuclear-powered warships to a person they believed was a representative of a foreign power. In actuality, that person was an undercover FBI agent.”
Both Jonathan, 42, and Diana, 45, were charged with conspiracy to communicate restricted data and communication of restricted data.
That count — conspiracy to communicate restricted data — had carried a maximum statutory penalty of up to life in prison. But in accordance with his plea, Jonathan will serve “a minimum of 151 months, or 12 and a half years, in federal prison,” authorities said this week.
A federal district court judge will ultimately determine his sentence.
“Today Jonathan Toebbe admitted that he violated federal law when he conspired with his wife to sell sensitive government information to a foreign power,” U.S. Attorney Cindy Chung for the Western District of Pennsylvania said in a release on Monday. “My office will continue to work with our law enforcement partners to identify and hold accountable those who would pursue financial gain at the expense of their solemn duty to protect our country’s closely held secrets.”
The plea raises the possibility that Jonathan could testify against his wife, who according to the agreement filed Monday “acted as a lookout” as her husband made what he thought were three dead drops to a foreign nation.
“During the charged period, Mr. Toebbe’s wife, Diana Toebbe, knowingly and voluntarily joined the conspiracy to communicate Restricted Data to another person with the intent to secure an advantage to a foreign nation and committed multiple overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy, including acting as a lookout while Mr. Toebbe serviced three dead drops,” Jonathan’s plea agreement states.
According to his plea, Jonathan sent a package to an un-identified foreign government in April 2020.
That package — which listed a return address in Philadelphia — contained “a sample of Restricted Data and instructions for establishing a covert relationship to purchase additional Restricted Data.”
Unbeknownst to Jonathan, the government that received the package handed it off to American authorities, who worked undercover to begin communicating with the engineer via encrypted email.
Jonathan and an undercover FBI agent continued their correspondence for months, eventually agreeing to a deal — he thought — in which he would sell restricted data in exchange for tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.
In keeping with the ruse, the undercover agent wired him $10,000 in cryptocurrency in June 2021, with assurances that an additional $20,000 would be wired once documents were placed at a drop location in West Virginia.
The undercover agent retrieved the card and sent Jonathan a $20,000 cryptocurrency payment. Per the plea agreement, Jonathan then emailed the agent a decryption key for the card.
Upon review, the agencies investigating the couple — the FBI and Naval authorities — found that the card did indeed contain “Restricted Data related to submarine nuclear reactors.” Another dead drop, in August, went similarly, with Jonathan concealing another storage card in a package of chewing gum and the agents uncovering that it, too, contained restricted data regarding nuclear reactors.
The FBI arrested Jonathan and his wife on Oct. 9, “after he placed yet another SD card at a pre-arranged ‘dead drop’ at a second location in West Virginia.”
source: people.com
