One former St. Louis Cardinals official learned that the hard way today, after he was sentenced to a 46-month term in prison for snooping through a rival team’s computer. He was facing up to five years in prison for each count and a possible $250,000 fine. He began by accessing the email account of one Astros employee who used to work for the Cardinals, referred to in the documents as “Victim A”.
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Regardless, Correa, who was sacked after news of the hack went public last summer, plead guilty and will now have to spend almost four years in prison (barring an early release).
In January, federal prosecutors set at $1.7 million the property loss to the Astros for the five incursions into their database to which Correa pleaded guilty.
That judgement was handed down by US District Judge Lynn Hughes in Federal Court in Houston.
The Associated Press reports that Major League Baseball could discipline the Cardinals for the ordeal, but has said it will wait for more info from federal authorities before making a decision. In December of 2011, Luhnow, then Cardinals’ vice president for scouting and player development, scored a job revitalizing the then-moribund Astros, taking over as general manager. This reason was not a valid legal excuse and Correa entered a guilty plea months ago, but the sentencing had been delayed on multiple occasions. According to the indictment, prior to leaving his post, “He was directed to turn over his Cardinals-owned laptop to to Correa-along with the laptop’s password”.
Now that a sentence has been levied, the St. Louis Cardinals organization holds its breath and awaits the levying of fines/punishments from Major League Baseball. We have a great amount of respect for Bill DeWitt and the Cardinals organization.
The information gathered from the Astros has been reported as potential draft picks, draft information for 2013, excel sheets of player grades and trade discussions and options for the ball club.
SEE MORE: Cardinals Hack: A Lucky Password Guess Or A Criminal Attack?
Once with the Astros, Luhnow did the same thing, and created Ground Control, a carbon copy of the Red Bird database.
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The Twins are in the middle of their fifth losing season in the last six years, and a 2015 season that saw them return to contention in the division proved not to be enough when the team sank to the bottom of the American League this summer.
