Over the course of several months in 2021, Jonathan Tove provided thousands of pages of documents to FBI agents posing as foreign representatives, but according to his guilty plea, the court documents did not list his name. not. According to Vice Adm. William J. Houston, commander of the U.S. Submarine Force, the restricted data included “some of the most secure and sensitive information about the nuclear fleet.”
The documents described the inner workings of a state-of-the-art attack submarine costing about $3 billion to build. Jonathan Tove has been working on naval nuclear propulsion technology for nearly a decade. This technology allows submarines to stay underwater longer and move more stealthily.
U.S. District Judge Gina M. Groh called Tevez a “confessed traitor” for committing “horrible deeds against this country.” Grow said the Maryland couple’s crime was one of the most serious she’d seen in court and that she “could harm U.S. soldiers, the military and civilians.” said. Jonathan Tobbe’s position gave him access to sensitive data, but Diana Tobbe’s ruling made the judge not entitled to a reduction in her sentence for obstructing justice and accepting responsibility. Therefore, it became longer.
“The damage to this country is severe, and these are terrifying times we live in,” the judge said Wednesday at a sentencing hearing in the Martinsburg, Virginia, federal court.
According to prosecutors, 44-year-old Jonathan Tove secretly collected tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency payments for initial data submitted to FBI agents and, at one point, turned past security checkpoints into “ offered to surrender 51 information packages it said it had “smuggled.” His Price: His $5 million paid in cryptocurrency, according to the October 2021 indictment.
46-year-old Diana Toebbe admitted she had been monitoring three “dead drops” where her husband left his datacards in pre-determined locations. These cards were hidden inside packs of gum, plasters, and peanut butter half of her sandwich.
According to the indictment, Jonathan Tove left a message that he and his accomplice were ready to flee the United States. “I’ll keep the cash and passport.”
The Tevezs, who have two sons, ages 12 and 16, were looking to leave the United States because they were against then-President Donald Trump, their lawyers said. An FBI search of his home in Annapolis found a “go bag” containing the children’s passports, thousands of dollars in cash, shredded papers, a flash drive and latex gloves.
“My family was under terrible threat, and I believed that democracy itself was on the brink of collapse. Tove said at the sentencing hearing. He described himself as an overworked family man who “self-medicated with alcohol” during a nervous breakdown that lasted over a year.
“I have failed to fulfill my responsibility to the American people to protect the secrets entrusted to me,” he said.
Diana Tove told a judge she regretted her “devastating decision”.
“I should have followed my instincts and tried to dissuade my husband from this plan, but since then my family’s struggles have continued, my depression has never been worse, and the political situation in the country is dire. I felt it,” she said. Not only did I fail to persuade him. I actually participated in helping him and wanted him to succeed. At the time, I was silly and thought that was the way out of these struggles.
Toebbes first pleaded guilty in February, but Groh broke his agreement with prosecutors, saying it was “grossly inadequate.” They would have demanded that Jonathan Tove be sentenced to 12½ to 17½ years in prison and Diana Tove to three years.
Diana Tebbe faces at least 12 and a half years in prison after pleading guilty under amended terms in September, while Jonathan Tebbe also faces a longer sentence.
Groh sentenced Diana Toebbe to 21 years and 10 months in prison and increased her sentence, saying she had nothing to do with the scheme.
Prosecutors did not tell the court about the letters that brought to the attention of the probation officer assigned to the case on Oct. 4. Prison officials intercepted the letters, one of which was hidden in a laundry bag. rice field.
“This is an exceptional story. It’s like a movie,” Groh said of Toves.
Prosecutors continued to seek a three-year sentence for Diana Toebbe after a revised petition in September. At Wednesday’s hearing, Groh asked how that made sense after she rejected a previous agreement that called for three years in prison.
The judge said, “36 months is a big part of why I didn’t accept the first binding plea,” adding that Diana Tebbe “has been accused of being a victim in a couple’s attempt to sell military secrecy.” He added that he looked like he was driving a bus.
Attorneys for Diana Toebbe argued that a three to nearly five-year prison sentence “matched, and in some cases longer than, those imposed on other accomplices,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Jarrod Douglas. , said that “she was not an accessible person” and that “on a couple of occasions she was just a lookout”.
“The idea of her husband making money was wrong, so she agreed to go with it,” defense attorney Barry P. Beck said in an August court filing. , Beck said Jonathan Tove was the person in the government position who instigated the plan and granted him access to the data.
“Mrs. Toebbe was a stay-at-home mom and teacher with a liberal arts degree, but she didn’t know what all this meant,” Beck said.
Prosecutors said Jonathan Tove was cooperating with the Navy Department and other authorities. His public advocate, Nicholas J. Compton, said it showed that Jonathan Tove did not hate the United States and accepted responsibility for his actions.
“No one was pointing a gun at his head,” Compton added. “And it was he who had access to the information whether Mrs. Toebbe was driving the train or not.”
Compton said his client’s work with authorities covers “not just the specific cases we’re here today, but information the government didn’t know.”
Jonathan Tove told the judge that he had received a report from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. can prevent ”
Glow has sentenced Jonathan Tove to 19 years and four months in prison, saying he doesn’t believe he’s trying to protect his family from President Trump.
“In a way that reads like a crime novel or movie script, the defendants have abused their position of trust to threaten national security,” Grow said, adding, “It has placed every citizen of this country in a vulnerable position.” ‘ added.
