Lawyers for the wife of a U.S. Navy nuclear engineer accused of attempting to sell nuclear secrets have claimed that she never wanted to escape the country – but just wanted to flee Donald Trump.
Diana Toebbe, 45, and her husband Jonathan, 42, were arrested in October and charged with selling secret information about nuclear submarines to an undercover FBI agent who posed as an operative for a foreign country.
It is unknown which foreign country it belongs to.
The couple is currently in jail and, arguing that they should be held without bail, prosecutors had shown a judge a text message conversation in which Jonathan Toebbe says to his wife: ‘We’ve got passports, and some savings. If we are really desperate, we could flee.
She says, “Right. We should act sooner than expected.
Following their October arrests in Virginia by Jonathan Toebbes and Diana Toebbes, these are their mugshots. The judge is considering the bail application.
Diane Toebbe (left) and Jonathan Toebbe (right) are both accused of being involved in a plot to sell nuclear secrets to a foreign power for $100,000 in cryptocurrency
Her lawyers claimed Wednesday that she did not intend to flee but wanted to be able to live with a different government.
According to NBC, the conversation of March 7, 2019, showed that the Toebbes were deciding on their next move.
Diana: “We must get out.”
‘To anywhere. To be a different person. Teaching in international schools. To accept Macron’s offer to host scientific refugees.
She seems reluctant to move out of the U.S. but her husband tries to comfort her by saying that Trump will be defeated at the election and that “Biden/Warren will prevail”.
“WE MUST GET OUT,” she replies. Hilary (sic), said she was going to stop the stomp trump. I’m done.’
She is reassured by her husband, who says that Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager and one of his closest advisers, was already in prison. Trump would likely be facing trouble due to Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the election.
‘Baby, I don’t get what’s triggering this now — Manafort’s going away. The Mueller report is coming Real Soon™,’ he said.
Her reply was: “It’s been way too long.” It hasn’t changed. He is still in power’, and points out that Manafort was given a hand-slap. That’s an indicator that everything is rigged.
Jonathan Toebbe replied: “We’ve got passports, some savings. We can also flee the country quickly if we are really in a pinch.
His wife said, “Right. His wife said: ‘Right. Let’s get there sooner than we think.
He then says he does not ‘want to go back to making $50k a year. Not in a language we do not know.
The Navy paid him $153,000 per annum as a nuclear engineer, while his wife made $60,000 per year.
Jonathan Toebbe claimed that Jonathan Toebbe’s nuclear engineering degree is “basically worthless abroad” because of the demise of the commercial nuclear industry.
Unafraid, she replied: “I can’t believe we wouldn’t both be welcome and rewarded in a foreign government.”
Her lawyers insist that she was unaware of his scheme, and in the documents filed on Wednesday they state that she ‘has reason to believe that her husband has also informed the government that she was not involved in his alleged scheme to sell classified information.’
According to the documents, Diana Toebbe received from her father a letter after her hearing. It stated that her husband had written it saying, “I have high hopes for Diana’s exoneration.”
The filing has not been responded to by the prosecution.
The couple argued that Diana Toebbe had been deeply involved with her husband’s plan and served as a spy while he left classified materials for an individual he claimed was a foreign agent.
They point out that Jonathan Toebbe also wrote in a message to the person he thought was his handler — who was actually an FBI agent— that ‘there is only one other person with knowledge’ of their arrangement. The government claims that this person was Diana Toebbe.
Prosecutors claimed that Jonathan Toebbe (a Navy nuclear propulsion specialist) sent a classified package to foreign representatives in April 2020. They offered to share many secrets for as little as $5 million and he would also reveal more information.
He wrote that he was interested in selling information on Virginia-class nuclear submarine reactors.
After the election, an unidentified foreign government examined the documents and turned them over in December 2020.
PICTURED – Diane Toebbe (45) and Jonathan Toebbe (42) were arrested for espionage, violation of the Atomic Energy Act. After receiving a package from an unidentified country, the FBI claimed it had obtained sensitive classified information regarding American nuclear submarines. It was received in December 2020, one month after President Biden won his election.
In October, Toebbe, along with his wife (a teacher), was taken into custody in West Virginia. According to the Justice Department.
In a peanut butter sandwich with chewing gum, a band-aid wrapper and a chewing tab packet, he concealed encrypted memory cards.
Toebbe was the head of military operations for fifteen months.
Since 2012, he has been working on naval nuclear propulsion. He also developed secret technology to lower the vibration and noise of submarines. These factors can reveal their exact location.
Toebbe indicated in one of his messages that he hoped the foreign government would be capable to locate him and his family, and said that they had passports as well as cash available for such a purpose.
The authorities claim that he sent instructions about how to have a furtive relationship with the letter saying: ‘I’m sorry for your poor translation. I request that you forward the following letter to your military intelligence service. Your nation will find this valuable information. This isn’t an ill-gotten gain.
An undercover FBI agent Toebbe, posing as the representative of a foreign country, made contact and offered to pay cryptocurrency thousands for his information.
These emails reveal that Toebbe initially remained suspicious but that he began to trust the undercover agent after he saw the huge amount he was being paid. He was to receive $100,000 in cryptocurrency.
Before he was captured, he had been paid $70,000
FBI Toebbe received a sign from Washington’s country’s Embassy over Memorial Day weekend. These papers don’t describe the process by which the FBI managed to create such a signal.
According to an affidavit from a federal court, the leaked secrets included’militarily sensitive operating parameters, design elements and performance characteristics for Virginia-class submarine nuclear reactors’.
Bird’s eye view of Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory, the FBI claim is the only place Toebbe could possibly have received classified US nuclear information.
FBI claims that Toebbe was sent 10,000 in bitcoin by an undercover agent in June 2021. He described the transaction as a gesture of trust and goodwill.
The complaint states that federal agents watched for weeks as the Toebbes reached West Virginia to exchange their goods. Diana Toebbe was seen as an observer for her husband, and for $20,000 the FBI had paid for dead-drop operations.
According to court documents, FBI officials recovered a blue card that had been wrapped in plastic. It was then placed between two bread slices on a peanut butter sandwich.
The couple could spend their entire lives in prison if they are convicted.
Public Navy records show that he was employed for fifteen months by the chief of Naval Operations, the highest ranking officer of the military branch.
Toebbe worked in the Navy since 2012 and held high-ranking clearances in nuclear engineering.
Toebbe began his military career as a civilian in 2017. He was commissioned in the Navy and rose to the rank of lieutenant before moving to the Navy Rescue, which he left in December 2020 — the month the FBI established contact with him.
Court documents show that he worked in naval nuclear propulsion technology since 2012. This includes technologies to lower the vibration and noise of submarines. These factors can reveal their exact location.
From 2012 to 2014, he also worked at naval reactors in Arlington. From 2012 to 2014, he was also a student in naval reactor school in Pittsburgh. He returned to Arlington to continue working on reactors.
The Atomic Energy Act is prohibited from disclosing information that could be used to create atomic weapons.
Diana Toebbe is a humanities teacher at the Key School, a private school in Annapolis.
Indefinitely, she was suspended.
According to the FBI, Toebbe was denied access to documents he shared with an undercover FBI agent at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory in West Mifflin.
What the deadly Virginia-class submarine of US Navy ranks up
Submarines have a quiet, deadly, and costly reputation. The Virginia class is an American attack submarine that can be built at a cost of $3.4 billion. It takes up to seven years for these boats to construct.
An attack submarine (also known as a hunter killer) is a sub-sea vessel that’s specifically built to sink or attack other submarines, surface navy warships, merchant ships, and others.
Virginia-class submarines can travel at least 25 knots. These submarines are some of the most quiet, and they are fitted with high-end sensors. This gives the US Navy a certain level of acoustic supremacy in the deep sea battlespace.
Additionally, they are outfitted with twelve vertical missile launch tube and four 533mm torpedo tubes. In a single attack, they can fire 65 missiles or torpedos including 16 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
It can launch missiles from speeds of 550 to 600 mph, and costs $3.5 billion.
Tomahawk cruise rockets are precision weapons costing $1.8 million each.
You can also fire Harpoon anti-ship missiles and 26 MK48 MOD 6 heavyweights torpedoes from the 21 inch torpedo tubes.
The subs are also able to deploy MK60 CAPTOR mines.
Submarines of the Virginia class can be submerged up to 3 months.
These subs are also capable of deploying unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV). UUVs are used in mine countermeasures as well as environmental monitoring.
Their range is unlimited and their reactor core uses high-enriched uranium for fuel. This means that they don’t need to be refueled during the ship’s life span of more than 30 years.
Block V, the most current type of Virginia-class submarines, is the longest. It measures 377 to 460 feet in length and has a greater displacement of 7,800 to 10,200 ton.
Therefore, Block V submarines of the Virginia class are second to only the Ohio-class in terms of size.
Virginia-class submarines were designed for the future.
Since December 2019, 19 US-66 Virginia-class attack submarines have been delivered. Another 11 are in construction. These boats can hold up to 135 persons (15 officers and 120 enlisted).