Jonathan & Diana Toebbe Plead Not Guilty To Espionage Charges

3 years ago 335

BALTIMORE, Md. (WJZ) — A U.S. Navy atomic technologist from Annapolis volition stay successful custody portion awaiting proceedings connected charges that helium tried selling subject secrets to a overseas government, but a national justice has yet to find if that should beryllium the lawsuit for his wife.

Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and his wife, Diana, 45, pleaded not blameworthy Wednesday erstwhile they were arraigned successful a West Virginia national tribunal connected a three-count indictment charging them with selling classified information to idiosyncratic they thought was a overseas quality serviceman but was successful information an undercover FBI agent.

The mates was arrested earlier this period pursuing an FBI sting operation. Authorities accidental Toebbe hid representation cards filled with delicate information wrong mean items, specified arsenic a sandwich oregon a battalion of gum, and dropped them disconnected astatine sites successful Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia, with his woman acting arsenic a lookout.

They were indicted Tuesday connected 1 number of conspiracy to pass restricted information and 2 counts of connection of restricted data. Each of those charges carries a maximum condemnation of beingness imprisonment and a $100,000 fine.

In tribunal Wednesday, Toebbe waived his close to a detention hearing, and helium was ordered to stay successful custody. But attorneys for his wife, who’s accused of aiding and abetting her husband, maintained their client’s innocence and contested an effort to support her down bars earlier the lawsuit goes to trial.

FBI Special Agent Peter Olinits testified astir the pains the mates took to support a low-profile during the “dead drop” deliveries. He said they wore hiking apparel to blend in, disabled their phones’ determination services and parked acold capable distant from the drop-off sites to cheque if they were being followed.

Olinits said the mates was paid $100,000 successful untraceable cryptocurrency, a fraction of the $5 cardinal sum Toebbe allegedly sought. That money, helium said, inactive hasn’t been recovered.

A hunt of the couple’s Annapolis location recovered $11,300 successful cash, a specialized wallet for cryptocurrency, and a “go bag” containing a laptop machine and latex gloves, Olinits said. He said authorities besides recovered a trash container filled with shredded documents of delicate data.

The cause besides pointed to conversations the mates allegedly had implicit an encrypted messaging app, successful which they discussed plans to permission the country.

Under transverse examination, Olinits acknowledged that speech from surveillance images of Diana Toebbe astatine 3 of 4 “dead drop” locations, investigators did not person factual grounds proving that she had entree to delicate information oregon was alert of everything her hubby “was up to.”

Federal prosecutors argued that Diana Toebbe was complicit successful the plot. If released, they said, she poses a formation hazard and has the imaginable to obstruct justness by altering oregon destroying evidence.

“They don’t person immoderate grounds of this stuff, of her knowing what her hubby was up to,” defence lawyer Edward MacMahon said, calling the government’s arguments “purely speculative.”

The defence projected freeing their lawsuit connected enslaved nether the conditions that she is connected location detention with progressive monitoring and that she does not person entree to the internet.

“She’s not going to fly the United States and permission her children, who request her, here,” MacMahon said. ”That’s not going to happen.”

MORE NEWS: Harford County Executive Proposes Legislation To Extend Outdoor Dining

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert Trumble did not marque an contiguous determination connected Diana Toebbe’s presumption Wednesday, saying helium would see the attorneys’ arguments and contented a written ruling later.

Read Entire Article