Written by Camille Domonoske at NPR.com
A former director of baseball development for the St. Louis Cardinals has been sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for unauthorized access to the Houston Astros’ computer systems.
Chris Correa pleaded guilty to the unauthorized access — which involved finding or guessing passwords to the computer system where the Astros store scouting reports — in January.
In the 2013 draft season, he accessed “scout rankings of every player eligible for the draft,” among other things, the Justice Department says. In 2014, he viewed “notes of Astros’ trade discussions with other teams.” He accessed “lists ranking the players whom Astros scouts desired in the upcoming draft, summaries of scouting evaluations and summaries of college players identified by the Astros’ analytics department as top performers.”
U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, as she sentenced Correa, noted that the crime has resulted in stricter security at other baseball teams, according to a press release from the Justice Department.
When Correa apologized and called his actions “reckless,” Huges replied, “No, you intentionally and knowingly did these acts.”
The “total intended loss” for Correa’s unauthorized access to the Astros computer systems is approximately $1.7 million, the Justice Department says. No one else from the Cardinals has been charged in connection with the crime.
Here’s more from the Justice Department on how Correa accessed the Astros’ proprietary information:
“In one instance, Correa was able to obtain an Astros employee’s password because that employee has previously been employed by the Cardinals. When he left the Cardinals organization, the employee had to turn over his Cardinals-owned laptop to Correa – along with the laptop’s password. Having that information, Correa was able to access the now-Astros employee’s Ground Control and e-mail accounts using a variation of the password he used while with the Cardinals.”
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