A U.S. Navy engineer and his wife have been sentenced to decades of jail for trying to sell classified military information to an unidentified foreign nation.
Lengthy jail sentences were handed out on Wednesday to the couple after they pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to try to sell classified information about the Navy's nuclear-powered submarines to a foreign government, in one case by hiding it in a peanut butter sandwich.
Toebbe, the chief engineer in the chief of naval operations' office, was given an 18-year sentence. Still, his wife Diana received a harsher punishment of 21 years for helping him and then trying to conceal her involvement.
The court records state that Toebbe gave undercover FBI agents who appeared to be from the foreign country hundreds of pages worth of nuclear secrets over several months.
Vice Admiral William J Houston, the head of the U.S. submarine forces, told the Washington Post that the data contained "some of the most secure and sensitive details regarding our nuclear-powered fleet."
Judge Gina M. Groh, ruling over the case in West Virginia, referred to Toebbes and his wife as "confessed traitors" who had performed "horrible acts against this nation."
The judge ruled that Diana was not entitled to a reduction in her prison term for taking responsibility and was instead given a heavier punishment because she obstructed justice.
At the sentencing hearing, the judge observed, "The harm to this nation is grave, and these are scary times we live in."
Diana was caught passing her husband a letter during the trial that purportedly urged him to execute the plan to forgive her of any wrongdoing.
The judge noticed the act and said, "She wanted [her husband] to lie."?
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