A West Oahu couple has been charged with identity theft and conspiring against the government, according to recently unsealed federal court records.

Walter Glenn Primrose and Gwynn Darle Morrison, both in their late 60s and who allegedly lived for decades under the names Bobby Edward Fort and Julie Lyn Montague, respectively, were arrested Friday at their home in Kapolei.

While living as Bobby Fort, Primrose attained secret security clearance with the U.S. Coast Guard and later as a defense contractor. Prosecutors are seeking to have the couple held without bail. They argue there is a high risk the couple would flee if freed and insinuated that the two could have ties to foreign intelligence agencies.

But Megan Kau, a former deputy prosecutor for the City and County of Honolulu who is representing Morrison, told the Honolulu Star-­Advertiser that “she’s not a spy, she doesn’t work for the Russians. This has all been blown way out of proportion.”

Old photos seized from the home show the couple wearing what Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Muehleck said are uniforms of the KGB, the former Soviet spy agency that has since been succeeded by the Russian FSB. The photos were included in a motion to hold the couple without bail.

“While he held that Secret clearance with the U.S. Coast Guard, defendant Primrose was required to report any foreign travel,” prosecutors wrote. “Investigation has revealed that defendant Primrose did not report several trips to Canada while he did report other foreign travel.”

They argue that Primrose, who was an avionics electrical technician in the Coast Guard, “has become highly skilled in electronics and would be able to communicate surreptitiously with others if released from pretrial confinement.” Muehleck also alleges that a “close associate” of Morrison said she lived in Romania while it was a Soviet bloc country.

But Kau said that the old photos are light-hearted mementos and are being taken wildly out of context to paint her client and her husband as villains straight out of a spy thriller.

“(Morrison) didn’t even remember the picture until now,” Kau said. “She was at a friend’s house 30-something years ago, and he had that jacket and she and her husband both took a picture with the same jacket. If you look at the picture, you can tell it’s the same jacket and that they took the picture in a home.”

Prosecutors say they believe the couple may have other aliases. Muehleck said that during the Friday raid federal agents allegedly seized correspondence found at their home “in which the greetings in the letters refer to defendants by names other than Bobby, Julie, Walter or Gwynn.”

According to court records, Primrose and Morrison were born in 1955 and they attended high school together in Port Lavaca, Texas, attended Stephen F. Austin University together from 1977 to 1979, and eventually married in 1980.

But court records allege that in 1987 “both obtained Texas birth certificate records for deceased American born infants, that they used to unlawfully assume the identities of ‘Bobby Edward Fort’ and ‘Julie Lyn Montague,’ respectively.”

An affidavit filed by Special Agent Dennis Thomas of the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service noted that the couple lost their home in Nacogdoches, Texas, to foreclosure in 1987 — the same year they assumed their new identities.

A year later they remarried under their new identities. Court records provide no information about the years between then and 1994, when Primrose enlisted in the Coast Guard. At 39, Primrose was eight years above the service’s maximum enlistment age. But as Bobby Fort, he was only 27.

If there was an obvious age discrepancy between what Primrose looked like and the birth certificate he presented, “that’s an abject failure,” said Kevin O’Grady, a Honolulu defense attorney not involved in the case. O’Grady is an Army reservist and lieutenant colonel judge advocate.

His enlistment eventually brought him to Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point. By all accounts, Primrose was good at his job and well liked over his two-decade career in the service. The Daily Beast reported he even became treasurer of the Hawaiian Islands chapter of the Coast Guard Chief Petty Officers’ Association. A contact listed for the chapter did not respond to requests for comment.

O’Grady said the secret clearance Primrose had provided access to information that is “enormously valuable to our enemies.”

The Coast Guard straddles the murky middle ground between the military, law enforcement and intelligence agencies. It works closely with the Navy and other military branches.

“The Coast Guard has a unique perspective on our vulnerabilities,” O’Grady said, including how to infiltrate the country through water ports. Hawaii, a major military center, “is a prime target for a lot of espionage and such,” he said.

Primrose retired from the Coast Guard in 2016 but continued working at the air station as a contractor. Primrose and Morrison allegedly continued to live under their assumed identities as they settled into island life, getting Hawaii state driver’s licenses and buying their home.

In 2018 the couple applied for and received Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System identification cards, which grant them base access, at the Hawaii National Guard office in Kapolei. When asked for comment, a Hawaii National Guard spokesperson said, “This matter is still under investigation.”

In court documents, prosecutors said that the couple’s home may not be used as collateral since the two “mortgaged their Kapolei properties under their false identities, thus committing bank fraud.”

The couple is charged with aggravated identity theft, conspiracy to commit an offense against the U.S. and false statement in an application for a passport. If convicted on all three counts they face a combined maximum of 22 years in prison each.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.