The former scouting director of the St. Louis Cardinals has been sentenced to almost four years in jail for hacking the Houston Astros’ player personnel database.
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Correa pleaded guilty to accessing Lunhow’s Ground Control account five times from March 2013 to June 2014 and downloading the Astros’ scouting reports for every player eligible for the 2013 Major League Baseball draft, notes on the Astros’ trade talks with other teams and evaluations of college and global players, court records state. According to prosecutors, Correa used an old password of a former Cardinals employee, who took a job with the Astros, to log into Ground Control and download the Astros’ scouting reports, information on possible Major League Baseball draftees, and other notes. “We anticipate that the authorities will share with us the results of their investigation at the appropriate time, and we will determine what further actions to take after receiving all the relevant information”.
FBI started an investigation into this incident in the August of 2015. Much will be dependent on whether Major League Baseball finds out any more information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Correa regarding his activity and whether other members of the Cardinals organization are involved.
“This is a very serious offense, and obviously the court saw it as well”, U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson said, via the Houston Chronicle.
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes levied the 46-month sentence and ordered the hacker to pay $279,037 in restitution on Monday from a federal courthouse in Houston. The password, as it turned out, was a variation of Eckstein123, a reference to former Cardinal infielder David Eckstein.
But it’s likely that the Cardinals will be docked some combination of draft picks and/or suffer a substantial fine, regardless of whether or not they were aware of Correa’s actions.
In the 2013 draft season, he accessed “scout rankings of every player eligible for the draft”, among other things, the Justice Department says. While working for the Cardinals, he managed to hack into the Astros’ Ground Control computer database and obtain sensitive information regarding Houston’s baseball operations. “I behaved shamefully”, Correa said in a letter he read prior to sentencing.
As part of his plea agreement, Correa admitted that from March 2013 through at least March 2014, he illicitly accessed the Ground Control and/or e-mail accounts of others in order to gain access to Astros proprietary information.
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The Twins entered the day 33-58, 21 games out of first place in the American League Central Division.
