Reuters
By Jan Wolfe WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors on Wednesday are expected to ask a judge to jail a former U.S. Navy nuclear engineer and his wife while they await trial on charges they attempted to sell secrets about nuclear submarines to a foreign power.
Jonathan Toebbe and his wife, Diana, were arrested on Oct. 9 in Jefferson County, West Virginia, following a yearlong sting operation by undercover FBI agents, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Currently in federal custody, they are scheduled to appear at a federal courthouse in Martinsburg, West Virginia for a detention hearing.
They have not yet been asked to enter a plea to the charges.
Nicholas Compton, a lawyer for Toebbe, declined to comment.
Toebbe, 42, a nuclear engineer with top-secret security clearance, is accused of sending Navy documents to an unnamed foreign entity in 2020, along with instructions on how to obtain additional information.