{"id":23994,"date":"2022-11-10T08:17:33","date_gmt":"2022-11-10T13:17:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=23994"},"modified":"2022-11-10T08:17:33","modified_gmt":"2022-11-10T13:17:33","slug":"couple-who-tried-to-sell-us-nuclear-submarine-secrets-to-foreign-country-are-jailed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2022\/11\/10\/couple-who-tried-to-sell-us-nuclear-submarine-secrets-to-foreign-country-are-jailed\/","title":{"rendered":"Couple who tried to sell US nuclear submarine secrets to foreign country are jailed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A US Navy engineer and his wife who sold secrets about nuclear submarines to an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative of a foreign government have been jailed.<\/p>\n<p>Citing the &#8220;great danger&#8221; the couple posed to national security, US District Judge Gina Groh sentenced Jonathan Toebbe to more than 19 years and his wife, Diana Toebbe, to nearly 22 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p>The couple, from Annapolis, Maryland, had argued that their mental health struggles and alcohol issues made them anxious about America&#8217;s political climate, which was why they sold secrets in exchange for $100,000 (\u00a388,000) in cryptocurrency.<\/p>\n<p>Sentencing them in Charleston,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/topic\/west-virginia-5760\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">West Virginia<\/a><\/strong>, on Wednesday, Judge Groh said their tale &#8220;reads like a crime novel or a movie script&#8221; and that Jonathan Toebbe&#8217;s &#8220;actions and greedy self-serving intentions placed military service members at sea and every citizen of this country in a vulnerable position and at risk of harm from adversaries.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Diana Toebbe, who admitted acting as a lookout for her husband and, received an enhanced sentence for trying to send her husband two letters from jail.<\/p>\n<p>Her sentence was increased from just three years to over two decades.<\/p>\n<p>The letters, which were read in court, were intercepted before they could be delivered.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>&#8216;Right out of the movies&#8217;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In one of them, which Mrs Toebbe told her husband to flush down the toilet after reading, she encouraged him to lie about her involvement in the scheme and say she &#8220;didn&#8217;t know anything about any of this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The judge said she lacked genuine remorse and didn&#8217;t take responsibility for her actions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is an exceptional story, right out of the movies,&#8221; Judge Groh said.<\/p>\n<p>Prior to sentencing, Jonathan Toebbe described his battles with stress and alcohol.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_23995\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-23995\" style=\"width: 640px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Virginia-class-attack-submarine.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-23995\" src=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Virginia-class-attack-submarine.jpg\" alt=\"A Virginia-class attack submarine\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Virginia-class-attack-submarine.jpg 640w, https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Virginia-class-attack-submarine-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-23995\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A Virginia-class attack submarine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&#8220;I believed that my family was in dire threat, that democracy itself was under collapse,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The 44-year-old claimed that belief overwhelmed him and caused him to feel he needed to take &#8220;precipitous action to try to save them from grave harm.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors said Mr Toebbe abused his access to top-secret government information and repeatedly sold details about the design and performance of Virginia-class submarines to someone he believed to be a representative of a foreign government but was really an undercover FBI agent.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Peanut butter sandwich &#8216;dead drops&#8217;<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Ms Toebbe, 46, who was teaching at a private school in Maryland at the time of the couple&#8217;s arrest last October, admitted she acted as a lookout at several prearranged &#8220;dead-drop&#8221; locations where memory cards containing the secret information were left behind.<\/p>\n<p>The memory cards were concealed in objects such as a chewing gum wrapper and a peanut butter sandwich.<\/p>\n<p>None of the information was classified as top secret or secret, falling into a third category considered confidential, according to previous testimony.<\/p>\n<p>During a hearing last December, Diana Toebbe&#8217;s attorney, Barry Beck, said the couple were looking to flee America due to their contempt for then-President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Read more<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/norway-arrests-university-lecturer-suspected-of-being-russian-spy-12729997\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Norway arrests university lecturer suspected of being Russian spy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>During a search of the couple&#8217;s home, FBI agents found a rubbish bag of shredded documents, thousands of dollars in cash, valid children&#8217;s passports and a &#8220;go-bag&#8221; containing a USB flash drive and latex gloves, according to previous testimony.<\/p>\n<p>The FBI said the scheme began in April 2020, when Jonathan Toebbe sent a package of Navy documents to a foreign government and said he was interested in selling operations manuals, performance reports and other sensitive information.<\/p>\n<p>That package was obtained by the FBI in December 2020 through its legal attache office in an unspecified foreign country, setting off a months-long undercover operation.<\/p>\n<p>An FBI agent posing as a foreign government&#8217;s representative contacted Toebbe, ultimately paying in cryptocurrency for the information he was offering.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Groh said about $54,000 (\u00a347,000) of the cryptocurrency had been recovered. She imposed fines of around $50,000 (\u00a344,000) on each defendant.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Source: \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sky-news-logo-1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/sky-news-logo-1.png\" alt=\"Sky News\" width=\"100\" height=\"20\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/right-out-of-the-movies-couple-who-tried-to-sell-us-nuclear-submarine-secrets-to-foreign-country-are-jailed-12743447\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">news.sky.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\">A US Navy engineer and his wife who sold secrets about nuclear submarines to an undercover FBI agent posing as a representative of a foreign government have been jailed. Citing the &#8220;great danger&#8221; the couple <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2022\/11\/10\/couple-who-tried-to-sell-us-nuclear-submarine-secrets-to-foreign-country-are-jailed\/\" title=\"Couple who tried to sell US nuclear submarine secrets to foreign country are jailed\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23996,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[8307,1930,1172,3122,8305,2293,1810,5393],"class_list":{"0":"post-23994","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-usa","9":"tag-annapolis","10":"tag-charleston","11":"tag-fbi","12":"tag-maryland","13":"tag-nuclear-submarines","14":"tag-spying","15":"tag-us-navy","16":"tag-west-virginia","17":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23994"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23998,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23994\/revisions\/23998"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}