A Navy engineer and his schoolteacher wife thought they had the perfect plan to sell America’s submarine secrets. Their method of choice?
A peanut butter sandwich.
Now they’re both headed to prison for decades.
Jonathan Toebbe, 44, and his wife Diana, 46, have been sentenced to more than 19 years and nearly 22 years in prison respectively after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges that read “like a crime novel or a movie script,” according to the judge who sentenced them.
The Annapolis, Maryland couple’s amateur espionage attempt involved hidden SD cards, cryptocurrency payments, and encrypted emails — yet somehow they still got caught by undercover FBI agents posing as foreign spies.
How a nuclear engineer became an amateur spy
Jonathan, who worked as a nuclear engineer with access to classified information about submarine nuclear reactors, apparently decided the best use of his security clearance was to try selling secrets to a foreign government.
According to court documents, he sent a package to an unnamed foreign government containing a sample of restricted data and instructions on establishing a relationship to purchase more secrets.
What Jonathan didn’t realize was that he wasn’t actually communicating with foreign agents, but with FBI officials who had intercepted his offer.
For several months, Jonathan exchanged encrypted emails with someone he believed represented a foreign government but who was actually an undercover FBI agent.
Eventually, they struck a deal to sell restricted data for thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency.
The sandwich drop that sealed their fate
In what sounds like a scene straight out of a spy comedy, Jonathan delivered his first batch of military secrets hidden inside a peanut butter sandwich.
After receiving a “good faith” payment of $10,000 in cryptocurrency from the undercover agent in June 2021, Jonathan left an SD card at a pre-arranged location.
The card, concealed inside half a peanut butter sandwich, contained military-sensitive design elements relating to submarine nuclear reactors.
After the agent retrieved the sandwich-encased secrets, they sent Jonathan a $20,000 cryptocurrency payment, prompting him to email back a decryption key for the SD card.
From sandwiches to chewing gum
Apparently emboldened by their initial success, the couple continued their espionage efforts.
Months later, Jonathan dropped off another SD card, this time hidden inside a pack of chewing gum.
After the FBI agent made a $70,000 payment, they received another decryption key and discovered the card contained similar restricted data.
The FBI finally arrested Jonathan and Diana on October 9, 2021, after he placed yet another SD card at a pre-arranged location in West Virginia.
“Catastrophic thinking” and family struggles
During their sentencing hearing, the couple tried to explain their motivations. Jonathan claimed he believed his family “was in dire threat, that democracy itself was on the verge of collapse.
And that sort of catastrophic thinking overwhelmed me,” according to The Washington Post.
Diana, who worked as a private-school teacher, said, “I should have followed my instinct and tried to talk my husband out of this plan, but then my family’s difficulties continued, my depression was at an all-time high, and I felt like the country’s political situation was dire.”
She added: “I didn’t just fail to talk him out of it; I actually participated in helping him, and I wanted him to succeed.
At the time, I absurdly thought it was a way out of these struggles.”
Signs they were planning to flee
The couple’s plans may have been more extensive than just selling secrets.
When the FBI searched their home, they found passports for their two sons (ages 12 and 16), thousands of dollars in cash, shredded documents, and a bag containing a flash drive and latex gloves — suggesting they might have been planning to leave the country.
U.S. District Judge Gina Groh didn’t buy their explanations, citing the “great danger” the couple posed to U.S. security.
She stated that Jonathan’s “actions and greedy self-serving intentions placed military service members at sea and every citizen of this country in a vulnerable position and at risk of harm from adversaries.”
Interestingly, Diana received a longer sentence than her husband, even though Jonathan was the one with access to the classified information.
According to reports, the judge found she had obstructed justice by attempting to send letters from jail encouraging her husband to lie about her involvement.
“I failed in my responsibility to the American people to preserve the secrets that were entrusted with me,” Jonathan admitted at sentencing.
Now the couple will spend the next two decades behind bars — plenty of time to reconsider whether a peanut butter sandwich was really the best hiding place for nuclear secrets.
Editor’s Note: This article was based on information from the U.S. Department of Justice, The Washington Post, and the Associated Press.