Lawyers for Toebbe did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The order did not say whether Toebbe intends to plead guilty, but such orders are typically issued after a defendant makes a plea with prosecutors rather than go to trial. In a short order issued on Friday, a magistrate judge in Martinsburg, West Virginia, said Jonathan Toebbe will appear in court on Monday at 3 p.m. Navy engineer charged with attempting to sell secrets about nuclear submarines to a foreign power will appear in court for a plea hearing on Monday, a likely indication that he intends to plead guilty. Instead, the defense said it was contempt for then-President Donald Trump as the reason behind the couple’s emigration plans.WASHINGTON, Feb 11 (Reuters) - A former U.S. Jonathan Toebbe, who held a top-secret security clearance through the Defense Department, agreed as part of the plea deal to help federal officials with locating and retrieving all classified information in his possession, as well as the roughly $100,000 in cryptocurrency paid to him by the FBI.įBI agents who searched the couple’s home found a trash bag of shredded documents, thousands of dollars in cash, valid children’s passports and a “go-bag” containing a USB flash drive and latex gloves, according to court testimony last year.ĭuring a December hearing, Diana Toebbe’s lawyers denied prosecution assertions that cited 2019 messages exchanged by the couple in which she had contemplated fleeing the United States to avoid arrest. The country to which Jonathan Toebbe was looking to sell the information has not been identified in court documents and was not disclosed in court during his wife's plea hearing Friday. That set off a monthslong undercover operation in which an agent posing as a representative of a foreign country made contact with Toebbe, ultimately paying $100,000 in cryptocurrency in exchange for the information Toebbe was offering. That package was obtained by the FBI in December 2020 through its legal attaché office in the unspecified foreign country. In the package, which had a Pittsburgh return address, he included instructions to his supposed contact for how to establish a covert relationship with him, prosecutors said. The FBI has said the scheme began in April 2020, when Jonathan Toebbe sent a package of Navy documents to a foreign government and wrote that he was interested in selling to that country operations manuals, performance reports and other sensitive information. 9 after he placed a memory card at a dead drop location in Jefferson County, West Virginia. The Annapolis, Maryland, couple was arrested on Oct. The memory cards were devices concealed in objects such as a chewing gum wrapper and a peanut butter sandwich. Jonathan Toebbe acknowledged during his plea hearing that he conspired with his wife to pass classified information to a foreign government in exchange for money with the intent to “injure the United States.” Prosecutors said he abused his access to top-secret government information and repeatedly sold details about the design elements and performance characteristics of Virginia-class submarines. In pleading guilty to the same charge as his wife, Jonathan Toebbe, 43, faces a potential punishment between roughly 12 and 17 years in prison, a sentencing range agreed to by lawyers. Sign up here and get news that is important for you to your inbox.ĭiana Toebbe was charged with acting as a lookout at several prearranged “dead-drop” locations at which memory cards containing the secret information were left behind.Īt the time of her arrest, Diana Toebbe was teaching at a private school in Maryland. We're making it easier for you to find stories that matter with our new newsletter - The 4Front.
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