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WASHINGTON (AP) – A Navy nuclear engineer with access to military secrets has been accused of attempting to convey information about the design of US nuclear submarines to someone he believed to be a representative of a foreign government but who turned out to be an undercover FBI agent, the Justice Department announced on Sunday.
In a criminal complaint detailing espionage charges against Jonathan Toebbe, the government said it had sold information for nearly a year to a contact it said represented a foreign power. This country was not named in court documents.
Toebbe, 42, was arrested in West Virginia on Saturday with his wife, 45, Diana, after he placed a removable memory card in a pre-established “dead drop” in Jefferson County, according to the department.
It was not immediately clear if Toebbe had a lawyer.
Prosecutors say the scheme began in April 2020 when Toebbe sent a package to a foreign government containing a sample of U.S. secrets he could provide, along with instructions on how to continue the stealth relationship. He then began communicating with someone who was in fact an undercover agent and agreed to sell information for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency, according to the complaint, which alleges violations of the atomic energy law. .
The Toebbes are scheduled to appear in court Tuesday in Martinsburg, West Virginia.
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