Navy engineer pleads guilty in submarine spy case

A Navy engineer pleaded guilty on Monday to trying to sell classified information on nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign government.

Jonathan Toebbe pleaded guilty in a West Virginia federal court of conspiracy to communicate restricted data. As part of his plea deal, he is facing between 12.5 years and 17.5 years in prison.  

Toebbe and his wife, Diana Toebbe, were arrested in early October and accused of knowingly selling restricted information about the design of nuclear-powered warships to someone they believed was a representative of a foreign government. In fact, they were the targets of an FBI sting operation.

The couple was initially charged with two counts of conspiracy to communicate restricted data and two counts of communication of restricted data. Later that month, both of them pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

Toebbe was a nuclear engineer for the Navy and was assigned to the Navy Nuclear Propulsion Program, which is also known as Naval Reactors. He had a national security clearance through the Department of Defense, meaning he had access to classified information on the warships.

In April 2020, he sent a package to an unnamed foreign country which had a sample of data related to “U.S. Navy nuclear powered warships and instructions for establishing a covert relationship to purchase additional Restricted Data.” That country forwarded the information to the FBI.

Over a year later, in February 2021, he began communicating with a person he believed was a representative from that country about selling more data, and in June received a $10,000 cryptocurrency payment with instructions for a physical “dead drop” of data.

On June 26, 2021, he left an SD card containing the data wrapped in plastic and concealed in half a peanut butter sandwich, according to the plea deal.

He went on to deliver three more sets of data to the same person. For the final drop on Oct. 9 — after which he was arrested — Toebbe concealed an SD card in a chewing gum package.

For all of the dead drops, Diana Toebbe is accused of serving as a lookout for her husband.

As part of his plea agreement, the government agreed to drop the remaining charges against him. He also agreed to help authorities with any data he still has and retrieve the money investigators used to gather evidence against him.