Navy nuclear engineer pleads guilty to conspiracy count in scheme to sell US naval secrets to a foreign country
CNN
US Navy nuclear engineer Jonathan Toebbe pleaded guilty to one felony count in federal court Monday afternoon, four months after he and his wife were arrested and charged with trying to sell classified information about nuclear submarines to a foreign country in exchange for millions of dollars of cryptocurrency.
Toebbe, 43, will face between 12 and 18 years in prison, according to the plea agreement read aloud by prosecutors in a federal courtroom in Martinsburg, West Virginia. He was initially charged with three federal felonies, each carrying up to life in prison.
Federal Magistrate Judge Robert Trumble accepted Toebbe's guilty plea and another federal judge will sentence him at a later date. That judge will have the option to impose a different sentence than agreed upon by Toebbe and prosecutors.