Couple sentenced in plot to sell U.S. submarine secrets by hiding intel in peanut butter sandwich

[Auburn85 432]

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/couple-sentenced-plot-sell-us-submarine-secrets-hiding-intel-peanut-bu-rcna56538

 

 

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Nov. 10, 2022, 5:35 AM CST

By Associated Press

 

A Navy engineer and his wife who both pleaded guilty to a plot to try to sell sensitive secrets about the Navy’s nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign country, in one case by hiding them in a peanut butter sandwich, were handed lengthy prison terms Wednesday.

Citing the “great danger” that a Navy engineer and his wife posed to U.S. security, U.S. District Judge Gina Groh, sentenced Jonathan Toebbe to more than 19 years and his wife, Diana Toebbe, to nearly 22 years. The sentences were handed down on Jonathan Toebbe’s 44th birthday.

 

They came after Groh, in August, rejected earlier plea agreements that had called for reduced sentencing guidelines.

The Annapolis, Maryland, couple and their attorneys described the defendants’ struggles with mental health issues and alcohol and said they were anxious about the nation’s political climate when they sold secrets in exchange for $100,000 in cryptocurrency.

Groh said their tale “reads like a crime novel or a movie script” and that Jonathan Toebbe’s “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.”

Diana Toebbe and Jonathan Toebbe.West Virginia Regional Jail and Correctional Facility / AP

Diana Toebbe, who admitted acting as a lookout for her husband, received an enhanced sentence after the judge disclosed during the couple’s combined five-hour sentencing hearing that Diana Toebbe tried to send her husband two letters from jail.

The letters, which were read in court, were intercepted before they could be delivered. In one of them, Diana Toebbe told her husband to flush the letter down a toilet after reading it. She encouraged him to lie about her involvement in the scheme and say she “didn’t know anything about any of this.”

The judge said she lacked genuine remorse and didn’t take responsibility for her actions.

“This is an exceptional story, right out of the movies,” Groh said.

Prior to sentencing, Jonathan Toebbe described his battles with stress in taking on additional duties and his own battle with alcohol. He said he experienced warning signs of a nervous breakdown over 18 months that he failed to recognize.

“I believed that my family was in dire threat, that democracy itself was under collapse,” he said. That belief overwhelmed him, he said, and led him to believe he had to take “precipitous action to try to save them from grave harm.”

Prosecutors said 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 was a representative of a foreign government but who was actually an undercover FBI agent.

Diana Toebbe, 46, who was teaching at a private school in Maryland at the time of the couple’s arrest last October, admitted she acted as a lookout at several prearranged “dead-drop” locations where memory cards containing the secret information were left behind.

The memory cards were devices concealed in objects such as a chewing gum wrapper and a peanut butter sandwich. The couple was arrested in October 2021 after Jonathan Toebbe placed a card in Jefferson County, West Virginia.

 

 

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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/584960-accused-spys-lawyers-say-plans-to-leave-country-were-over-trump-not-arrest/

 

 

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Accused spy’s lawyers say plans to leave country were over Trump, not arrest

by Mychael Schnell - 12/08/21

 

Lawyers for a woman who was arrested with her husband, a Navy engineer, on espionage charges said their client’s aspirations to leave the country were because of former President Trump and not to escape arrest.

Attorneys for Diana Toebbe — who has been accused of helping her husband, Jonathan Toebbe, in an scheme to funnel classified information to a foreign government — disclosed text messages between the couple in a court filing on Wednesday to illustrate that their client’s desire to leave the country was grounded in the current political climate and not her involvement in the alleged plot.

A judge in October ordered Diana Toebbe to remain in jail after deeming her a flight risk. He pointed to text messages she sent to her husband in 2019 and 2020 in which she expressed an interest in leaving the U.S.

Her lawyers, however, are now saying the text messages disclosed at the time do not paint the full picture of the conversation between the couple because all of the messages were not included.

On March 7, 2019, Diana Toebbe told her husband, “We need to get out,” according to the court filing, to which Jonathan Toebbe responded, “At least he’s doing some hard time. And it’s short enough Trump likeley won’t try to pardon him — he’s clearly already sold Mueller whatever he had.”

The text messages seem to reference former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who at the time appeared to be working with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s team, according to NBC News. Manafort was eventually convicted on eight counts of bank and tax fraud and stopped cooperating Mueller.

He was pardoned by Trump last December.

According to the court filing, the text message mentioning Trump was not initially disclosed.

Diana Toebbe then reiterated her interest in leaving the country, telling her husband, “We need to get out.”

“*sigh* where? To do what?” Jonathan Toebbe responded, according to the court filing.

“To anywhere. To do something else… to teach in international schools… to take Macron up on his offer to harbor scientific refugees,” Diana Toebbe responded.

“Biden/Warren will curb stomp Trump/Pence,” Jonathan Toebbe replied, according to the court filing.

Diana Toebbe again emphasized, “WE NEED TO GET OUT” to her husband before writing, “Hilary was going to curb stomp trump. I’m done.”

Jonathan Toebbe then brought up Manafort by name, telling his wife, “Baby, I don’t get what’s triggering this now – Manafort’s going away. The Mueller report is coming Real Soon.”

“It’s been too long. Nothing has changed. He’s still in power,” Diana Toebbe wrote.

“Nothing in government moves that fast – believe me, I speak from personal experience,” Jonathan Toebbe texted, prompting his wife to write, “Manafort got a slap on the wrist. It’s a signal that the entire system is rigged.”

The Toebbes were arrested in October and charged with violating the Atomic Energy Act. They have been accused of selling data on the design of nuclear-powered warships for nearly a year to someone who they thought was a representative of a foreign government but was in fact an undercover FBI agent.

Diana Toebbe allegedly acted as a lookout for three of the four intelligence drop-offs that her husband completed. In one instance, Jonathan Toebbe is said to have hidden an SD card in a gum wrapper, which was then placed inside a peanut butter sandwich in a plastic bag.

Jonathan Toebbe was a nuclear engineer for the Navy, where he worked on the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program. That employment is reportedly how he got access to the restricted data pertaining to naval nuclear propulsion.