BALTIMORE — A former Navy nuclear engineer from Annapolis pleaded guilty to espionage Monday, admitting in federal court that he tried to sell classified military information to a foreign government.
Jonathan Toebbe entered the guilty plea in the W. Craig Broadwater Federal Building and United States Courthouse in Martinsburg, West Virginia, which is not far from where he and his wife, Diana, were arrested in October.
Having worked since 2012 on projects related to naval nuclear propulsion, Toebbe held a top-secret security clearance, according to federal investigators. They said it’s possible he’d been collecting information related to the Navy’s nuclear endeavors throughout his tenure and, at some point in 2020, sought out a foreign country to share it with.
