DOJ: Maryland Nuclear Engineer and Spouse Arrested on Espionage-Related Charges

[Barry.Randolphe]

4 hours ago, gbear said:

I thought the Rosenbergs were executed for stealing nuclear secrets for the U.S.S.R.  They are lucky to not be tried for treason with the death penalty on the table.

 

 

 

Jonathan Pollard gave secrets to Israel and was released after 30 years to a hero's welcome in Tel Aviv. He should have been given the death penalty

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

I assume he has some sort of plea deal.  Otherwise why would you plead guilty when there is the possibility of a death sentence for being convicted of espionage.

[Llevron]

37 minutes ago, China said:

I assume he has some sort of plea deal.  Otherwise why would you plead guilty when there is the possibility of a death sentence for being convicted of espionage.

 

They probably wanted the buyer more than the seller. But in this case the buyer was the FBI so who knows what they are up to. 

 

We used this couple as an example in my latest security briefings at work. 'Dont be these people'

Edited February 15, 2022 by Llevron

[tshile]

Wouldn’t be surprised if the wife’s role was incredibly minor in this , and the plea is in exchange for dropped charges against her. 
 

they have young children. There’s an incentive to have one of them not be in prison. 
 

If all she really did was physically assist in the drops and such, there’s no real value in putting her in prison and leaving those kids to … whatever the options are if both parents are in prison. 
 

i was friends with someone whose father is a famous spy. 
 

when he got arrested, those kids lives went to complete and utter ****. Her brain and emotions were  just… trashed. I lost touch with her, but as far as I’m aware she never regained any semblance of a normal life. When you consider how the kids have no control and are essentially just born into it, and no knowledge, it’s really sad. 

Edited February 15, 2022 by tshile

[GoCommiesGo]

4 minutes ago, tshile said:

they have young children. There’s an incentive to have one of them not be in prison. 

 

Wife worked at the same school as the mother. The kids are separated across relatives, and states. I'm honestly not sure the kids want anything to do with them, at this point. 

[tshile]

48 minutes ago, GoCommiesGo said:

 

Wife worked at the same school as the mother. The kids are separated across relatives, and states. I'm honestly not sure the kids want anything to do with them, at this point. 

Yeah. It’s a difficult thing to go through. Can’t fault them either way. 

[China]

Judge rejects plea deal in spy case because sentences weren't harsh enough

 

A naval engineer and his wife were to be sentenced on Tuesday for trying to sell information about nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign government — until the judge rejected their plea deals, saying they were not harsh enough. 

 

Jonathan Toebbe and his schoolteacher wife, Diana, were arrested in October and pleaded guilty in February to espionage charges. 

 

In a series of dead drops in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Virginia, Jonathan Toebbe passed military secrets to someone he believed to be an agent of another country, but who was actually an undercover FBI agent, authorities said. In one of the exchanges, he concealed a memory card inside a peanut butter sandwich, according to court filings. 

 

Diana Toebbe admitted that she acted as a lookout for her husband at prearranged secret locations as he deposited classified documents that would later be retrieved by the FBI. 

 

------------------

 

During Tuesday's hearing, the judge pushed back against the suggested sentencing in the plea agreements, questioning Justice Department lawyers about why the sentences were not harsher, given the national security risks. The government sought up to 17.5 years for Jonathan Toebbe and three years for Diana Toebbe. 

 

Prosecutors said that Jonathan Toebbe revealed  information classified at the confidential level, not at the top-secret or secret level. He was also the mastermind behind the plan — he smuggled the documents out of a secure facility, set up encrypted email accounts and cryptocurrency wallets, made the outreach to the foreign nation and serviced the dead drops.  

 

They argued Diana Toebbe simply acted as a lookout, standing near her husband with her hands on her hips as he made some of his dead drops. 

 

"She will be labeled a spy for the rest of her life," prosecutor Jarod Douglas said of the former schoolteacher. "A felon of the worst kind." 

 

The judge didn't find that to be sufficient punishment, and she also indicated that Jonathan Toebbe's sentence under the deal fell short. 

 

"Counsel, it's not in the best interest of this community or, in fact, this country to accept these plea agreements. Therefore I'm rejecting them … I don't find any justifiable reasons for accepting either one of these plea agreements." 

 

The Toebbes, both wearing orange jumpsuits and handcuffs, withdrew their guilty pleas and the case will go to trial early next year. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

Quote

A Navy engineer who tried to sell military secrets to a foreign country was sentenced Wednesday to more than 19 years in prison, and his wife was sentenced to just shy of 22 years for aiding his plans and then attempting to hide her role.

 

Jonathan Toebbe, a civilian nuclear engineer with a top-secret security clearance, and Diana Toebbe, a private-school teacher in their hometown of Annapolis, admitted they tried to sell restricted data about nuclear propulsion systems on submarines to a foreign country — a violation of the Atomic Energy Act that carries a maximum penalty of life in prison. 

 

Jonathan Toebbe over several months in 2021 provided thousands of pages of documents to undercover FBI agents posing as representatives of the foreign nation, which is not named in court papers, according to his guilty plea. The restricted data included “some of the most secure and sensitive information about our nuclear-powered fleet,” according to the commander of U.S. submarine forces, Vice Adm. William J. Houston.

 

[Larry]

Should have claimed they had thought about declassifying them.