Former Cardinals executive pleads guilty to hacking Astros

Former St. Louis Cardinals scouting director Chris Correa will reportedly be indicted Friday with the intent to plead guilty to charges associated with a hack of the Houston Astros’ computer network. Correa was sacked by the Cardinals over the accusations and pending investigation.

Correa was charged by information on December 22 but the case was sealed until today, after he appeared in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Mary Milloy. Ground Control and Astros employee e-mail accounts could only be accessed via password-protected accounts.

The other man at the center of this is Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, who joined the club in 2011 after working as a Cardinals executive. U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a telephone interview after the hearing that Correa claims he found that the Astros had proprietary information belonging to the Cardinals.

Houston has alleged that there have been multiple unauthorized breaches of their internal database.

The Astros operated a private online database called “Ground Control” to house a wide variety of confidential data, including scouting reports, trade discussions, statistics and contract information, US officials said. Correa accessed the Astros’ system on June 8-before day three of the amateur draft-and the pages he looked at included “information on Players I, J, and K, three players whom the Cardinals had drafted the day before”. He will be released on $20,000 bond. “The Astros refute Mr. Correa’s statement that our database contained any information that was proprietary to the St. Louis Cardinals”. Correa was able to access the former Cardinals employee’s email once again on his old laptop and obtained the new URL and newly reset passwords for all employees, according to the DOJ.

Luhnow created a similar scouting database in Houston.

St. Louis, MO (KTRS) The St. Louis area is gearing up for the first winter storm of the season.

The Cardinals are among baseball’s most successful franchises on and off the field. The Astros and Cardinals were rivals in the National League Central Division until Houston moved to the American League in 2013.