DENVER — A Navy nuclear engineer and his wife were sentenced to prison after they were convicted of trying to pass information about American nuclear-powered warships to a foreign country.
Jonathan Toebbe was sentenced to 19 years and 4 months in prison after pleading guilty in February to a single count of conspiracy to communicate restricted data. Diana Toebbe, Jonathan Toebbe’s wife, will be spending 21 years and 10 months behind bars.
Sentencing took place in federal court in Martinsburg, West Virginia, Wednesday.
Toebbe and his wife, Diana, of Annapolis, Maryland, were arrested last October after prosecutors said he had repeatedly sold information about the submarines to someone he thought was a representative of a foreign government but who was actually an undercover FBI agent.
The country to which Toebbe was looking to sell the information has not been identified in court documents.
Toebbe and his wife worked in the science department at Kent School Denver. Jonathan Toebbe worked there from 2005 to 2008, while Diana Toebbe worked there from 2005 to 2012.
Jonathan Toebbe also earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the Colorado School of Mines in May 2012.
The Associated Press contributed to this report