EX-CARDS SCOUT GUILTY OF HACKING
HOUSTON • The former scouting director for the St. Louis Cardinals pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to hacking into the player database and email system of the Houston Astros in an unusual case of high- tech cheating involving two Major League Baseball clubs.
Christopher Correa pleaded guilty to five counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer, access authorities said dated from 2013 to at least 2014.
The 35- year- old Correa was the Cardinals’ director of baseball development until he was fired last summer, and he faces up to five years in prison on each charge when he is sentenced April 11.
“I accept responsibility in this case,” Correa told U. S. District Judge Lynn Hughes. “I trespassed repeatedly.”
“So you broke in their house,” Hughes told Correa, referring to the Astros.
“It was stupid,” replied Correa, who is f r ee on $20,000 bond.
The FBI said Correa was able to gain access using a password similar to that used by a Cardinals employee who “had to turn over his Cardinals- owned laptop to Correa along with the laptop’s password” when he was leaving for a job with the Astros in 2011. That employee is believed to be Jeff Luhnow, now the general manager of the Astros.
In a five- page charging document, prosecutors said Correa in 2013 improperly downloaded a file of the Astros’ scouting list of every eligible player for that year’s draft. They say he also improperly viewed notes of trade discussions as well as page that listed information such as potential bonus details, statistics and notes on recent performances and injuries by team prospects.
There was no immediate comment Friday from MLB or the Cardinals, whose chairman, Bill DeWitt Jr., had blamed the incident on “roguish behaviour.”
Giles Kibbe, general counsel for the Astros, said it was a “difficult day for everyone in baseball” and that all the information in the case would be turned over to the baseball commissioner’s office “to guide us through this.”
He took issue with comments made by Correa when he told the judge he had found Cardinals’ proprietary information in the Astros computer system.
“To be clear, no one at any time with the Cardinals, or anyone associated with Major League Baseball, has ever made any statement, contacted the Astros or raised any concern that anything in our database or in our network was Cardinals’ proprietary information,” Kibbe said.
The Justice Department said Correa illegally accessed information ahead of critical baseball events, such as on the morning of the 2013 amateur draft and before that summer’s non- waiver trade deadline.
The Astros rely heavily on sabermetrics in their evaluation of players and have been open about the fact that they use a database called Ground Control to house proprietary information.