A former scouting director of the St. Louis Cardinals will plead guilty on Friday to criminal charges in connection with a breach of the computer network of baseball team the Houston Astros, the Wall Street Journal reported.
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No other members of the Cardinals’ organization were charged.
The parties agreed that the “total intended loss” for the intrusions was about $1.7 million, federal officials said. “Whether it’s preserving the sanctity of America’s pastime or protecting trade secrets, those that unlawfully gain proprietary information by accessing computers without authorization must be held accountable for their illegal actions”. Correa was accused of improperly downloading an Excel file of the Astros scouting list in 2013, and viewing Astros notes of trade discussions, the Astros main draft page, and a scouting page that had information on the Astros prospects, according to the Associated Press.
The Cardinals are among baseball’s most successful franchises on and off the field. We have a great amount of respect for Bill DeWitt and the Cardinals organization.
The unauthorized access continued even after the Astros changed passwords, the website address and other security precautions involving Ground Control, an Astros database that housed proprietary information and that was the subject of a detailed 2014 report in the Houston Chronicle. He also accessed the account of a second Astros employee.
Luhnow has not commented in detail about the case, though he told Sports Illustrated that poor password protection was not to blame for the access. “The Astros refute Mr. Correa’s statement that our database contained any information that was proprietary to the St. Louis Cardinals”.
“The theft of intellectual property by computer intrusion is a serious federal crime”, said Special Agent in Charge Turner.
One June 8, he again accessed Ground Control, looking only at undrafted players and three players the Cardinals had drafted the day before.
St. Louis personnel were suspected of hacking into the Astros’ system to undermine the work of Houston General Manager Jeff Luhnow, who left the Cardinals to work for the Astros after the 2011 season. Correa was able to get into the Astros’ system via the ex-employees’ email account by using a variation of the password found on his old Cardinals computer.
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Magidson told reporters that Correa’s hacking of the Astros allowed the Cardinals to keep an eye on what the Astros were up to. For example, during 2013, he was able to access scout rankings of every player eligible for the draft. That information included statistics and notes on recent performance and injuries.
