Navy nuclear engineer and wife arrested on espionage charges for trying to sell submarine secrets to foreign power by way of a peanut butter sandwich

quote:

... Jonathan Toebbe, 42, and his wife Diana, 45, were arrested in West Virginia on Saturday, by the FBI and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The couple from Annapolis, Maryland, allegedly "sold information known as Restricted Data concerning the design of nuclear-powered warships to a person they believed was a representative of a foreign power," according to the Justice Department. ...

That is absolutely nuts !!

$30K in cryptocurrency will get one a pretty nice Corolla or Civic, and perhaps a few cartons of cigarettes. Selling the nation out pretty cheap.

ETA; read it again, paying more attention..he got $100K total. No doubt their bond will be much higher than that.

Give 'em a fair trial tomorrow morning and and hang 'em after right after lunch.

I hate traitors.

I'm assuming China? Their embassies/consulates here in the USA are jam-packed with "Defense Attaches" on diplomatic visas. Because, you know, there's so much military cooperation and liaison between us and the Chinese, meriting a large PLA staff.

Someone educate me...Can this guy be executed for treason like the Rosenbergs?

'After an undercover agent reportedly sent $10,000 in cryptocurrency to Jonathan Toebbe as a "good faith" payment, the couple allegedly traveled to West Virginia in June. That's when Jonathan presented a peanut butter sandwich at a pre-arranged "dead drop" location, where Diana was a supposed lookout.'

Coupla goobers. Gotcha!

I guarantee you they were up to their eyeballs in debt trying to keep up with the Jone’s and were looking for a quick and easy way out of that.

I agree with Tac, have a trial and hang these scumbags high. Better yet, line them up and shoot them like we USED to do.

I genuinely think letting them rot in a supermax prison is worse than execution. 23 hour lockdown, your one hour is not outside. Limited to no conversation with others. Many people are literally nuts after just a few years of that.

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:
I'm assuming China? Their embassies/consulates here in the USA are jam-packed with "Defense Attaches" on diplomatic visas. Because, you know, there's so much military cooperation and liaison between us and the Chinese, meriting a large PLA staff.

Doesn't sound like he managed to actually find a buyer for any of the data. Looks like the FBI caught his attempts early, and set up an undercover agent to set up all the buys.

China would hang a traitor on their side, why do we go easy on them?

Also, how did this begin? Did the USPS intercept the package and call the FBI?

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
I genuinely think letting them rot in a supermax prison is worse than execution. 23 hour lockdown, your one hour is not outside. Limited to no conversation with others. Many people are literally nuts after just a few years of that.

I played a round of golf one time with the warden about 20 years ago in CoSpgs.


Friend of mine was joking about meeting Ted Kaczynski, Ted Bundy, all the black hats in there, and the warden’s demeanor took a turn to the serious like he would not believe; mentioning that you would never want these people to even know you’re freaking name.

Changed the whole tenor of the game dammit. Things were back to normal by the 17th hole finally.

BLMers at that.

https://thepostmillennial.com/...sell-nuclear-secrets

quote:

Originally posted by jhe888:
I genuinely think letting them rot in a supermax prison is worse than execution. 23 hour lockdown, your one hour is not outside. Limited to no conversation with others. Many people are literally nuts after just a few years of that.

Given our nation’s deficit, I’d be ok with the cheapest solution: 15ft of rope. Hell, you can even reuse it and get a twofer out of it, ladies first.

quote:

Originally posted by Rev. A. J. Forsyth:
Someone educate me...Can this guy be executed for treason like the Rosenbergs?

Per Wikipedia, this is how they got the Rosenbergs:

quote:

On March 29, 1951, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage. They were sentenced to death on April 5 under Section 2 of the Espionage Act of 1917,[29] which provides that anyone convicted of transmitting or attempting to transmit to a foreign government "information relating to the national defense" may be imprisoned for life or put to death.[30]

If this law is still on the books, then probably yes.

quote:

On March 29, 1951, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage.

Yes, espionage. Not treason.

Helping the Soviets build their own atomic bombs was perhaps the worst act of espionage that could have been committed by Americans, but theirs were the only death sentences for espionage in modern times.* Other “atomic spies” working for the Reds didn’t suffer the same fate, nor have others who were convicted of espionage that could have had extremely serious consequences—and still may.

* There were a lot of protests against the executions of the Rosenbergs at the time, including claims that they weren’t guilty. I have long thought that those efforts were ironic given the Soviets’ treatment of anyone caught spying there for foreign powers or even much less serious crimes.
Once again, what’s that I hear from the American Left? >Only crickets.<

Before we get to the hanging part…I’d like to know if the fbi was involved in entrapping them like they have done in the past ie: let’s kidnap a governor and execute her….

Edited for spelling

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MikeinNC, October 11, 2021 08:01 PM

quote:

Originally posted by DennisM:
I'm assuming China? Their embassies/consulates here in the USA are jam-packed with "Defense Attaches" on diplomatic visas. Because, you know, there's so much military cooperation and liaison between us and the Chinese, meriting a large PLA staff.

Could be wrong but I don't think it was China. This country actually notified the US government of this attempt to sell to them. Article also said this country already has nuclear subs. I doubt China would notify the US government and then HELPED the FBI to set them up to be captured (at FBI's request, this country agreed to fly a signal flag from their embassy in DC as a trusted signal for this couple).

I am thinking it's India.

Yeah, well, to the wannabe spies, I say black lives matter, but your aren't worth a bucket of warm piss now. Enjoy prison. You'll have a chance to put your philosophy into action in there.