A former US Navy engineer has been charged with trying to sell secret nuclear submarines to a foreign power, and pleaded guilty yesterday to a deal with prosecutors.
A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer has announced the deal with nuclear engineer Jonathan Toyby during a court hearing in West Virginia federal court.
Toibi, 42, pleaded guilty to espionage with his wife for leaking classified information. This is a violation of US Atomic Energy Act that carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Toybi’s 45-year-old wife, Diana, has been charged with aiding and abetting her husband while facing criminal charges. She herself did not admit her guilt.
The agreement to admit his guilt by Toypt provides for the possible imposition of a prison sentence on him, between 12 and 17 years.
The same agreement “suggests that the government had a very strong case, with its course of action posing a serious threat to national security,” said Brandon van Grock, a national security lawyer at Morrison & Foerster, who has no involvement in the case.
Prosecutors in an indictment filed in October said Toybi and his wife had tried to sell government secrets about promoting nuclear submarines in a foreign country.
Toibi, who had a license to run classified information, contacted an FBI undercover agent who posed as a representative of a foreign government over a period of several months, according to the US Department of Justice.
At one point, Toibi hid a digital memory card containing documents about nuclear reactors used in submarines, half a peanut butter sandwich, at a secret location in West Virginia, while his wife acted as the US Department of Justice.
The memory card contained “sensitive military design elements, operating parameters and performance characteristics for Virginia-class submarine nuclear reactors,” according to the Department of Justice.
An FBI agent testified during a court hearing in October that Toibi had demanded $ 5 million in cryptocurrencies in exchange for secret submarine information. A $ 100,000 payment made by the FBI to Toybi was not identified, according to the agent.
Follow Skai.gr on Google News
and be the first to know all the news
