NORFOLK, Va. (AP) – The Navy wasn’t what Ariel Jonathan Weinmann had expected.

“I had a very idealized view, basically what amounted to a World War II Navy,” the 22-year-old sailor told a military judge.

So two years after he enlisted, the disillusioned petty officer third class deserted his submarine, taking with him a stolen laptop full of secrets. Weinmann said he hadn’t intended to harm the United States – he wanted to use a technical document pertaining to a weapons system as leverage to help him migrate to a nation he referred to as “Country X.”

Under a plea agreement, Weinmann pleaded guilty Monday to espionage, desertion, failing to properly safeguard and store classified information, electronically copying classified information, communicating classified information to a person not entitled to receive it, stealing a government laptop and destroying the computer.

Weinmann, a fire control technician, had been stationed on the Connecticut-based submarine USS Albuquerque.

If convicted, Weinmann, 22, of Salem, Ore., could face life in prison without parole, a dishonorable discharge from the Navy and forfeiture of pay.

The agreement includes a maximum sentence, but the judge, Capt. Daniel O’Toole, said he had not looked at the terms. If the judge finds Weinmann guilty and imposes a sentence greater than what is in the agreement, the sentence will be reduced; if his sentence is less than what was agreed upon, it will stand.

Defense attorney Phillip Stackhouse declined to give details about the sentence in the agreement.

Under the pretrial agreement, which was signed off by the secretary of the Navy, Weinmann pleaded guilty to trying to transmit classified information related to national defense to a representative of a foreign government on Oct. 19, 2005, while he was in or near Vienna, Austria.

The military has not said what it believes Weinmann might have sought in exchange for the information nor disclosed the foreign government’s identity.

Weinmann pleaded not guilty to two additional espionage counts, one accusing him of giving classified information to an agent of a foreign government in March 2005 in Bahrain and another accusing him of trying to deliver confidential information on March 19, 2006, in Mexico City.

He told the judge during questioning about his pleas that he deserted in July 2005 because “my expectations in the Navy were not met.”

Weinmann said he copied 29 classified documents and four classified technical manuals from the ship’s computer network onto the hard drive of a Navy laptop, which he stole from a locker on the submarine by wrapping in a trash bag and placing it inside his backpack.

He said he moved to Austria and never planned to return to the United States, but changed his mind. He was apprehended in March at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport because he was listed as a deserter.

Weinmann told the judge he took information, including military biographies with details such as nicknames, service history and childhood pets, from sources including the CIA and Department of State.

He said he thought he had information that “could tip people off that they were in contact with American intelligence” and that he could use the documents to seek and expedite asylum in Austria. He did not explain in court why he wanted to go there.

He said he realized the information was useless when he showed some of the documents in August 2005 to a German citizen living with him who was skeptical about his plan. “He, at that point, laughed at me,” Weinmann recalled.

Weinmann said he later went to the embassy of “Country X” and gave a document in a three-ring binder to a man he said told him worked for that country’s state department.

Weinmann said he wanted to move to “Country X” because had met some people from there and he thought he could use the document as leverage to get him into the country.

“I had reason to believe it would aid Country X,” Weinmann said. He said the United States had cordial relations with the country at the time, but “I knew there was at least a degree of competition between the two nations.”

When asked by the judge, Weinmann acknowledged that the documents he took could be used to injure the United States or provide an advantage to a foreign nation.

Weinmann said he used a rubber mallet to destroy the laptop’s hard drive in March 2006 because he had decided to go to Mexico City and he didn’t want anybody else to have access to the information.

He left most of his belongings behind in his apartment, he said, because he wanted it to look as though he were still living there.

AP-ES-12-04-06 1954EST