Ex-Cards exec sentenced to jail for Astros hack

3:58 PM ET

HOUSTON — A federal judge sentenced the former scouting director of the St. Louis Cardinals to nearly four years in prison Monday for hacking the Houston Astros’ player personnel database and email system in an unusual case of high-tech cheating involving two Major League Baseball clubs.

Christopher Correa had pleaded guilty in January to five counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer from 2013 to at least 2014, the same year he was promoted to director of baseball development in St. Louis. He was fired last summer and now faces 46 months behind bars and a court order to pay $279,038 in restitution. He had faced up to five years in prison on each count.

Correa read a letter in court before he was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Hughes and he said he was “overwhelmed with remorse and regret for my actions.”

“I violated my values and it was wrong … I behaved shamefully,” he said. “The whole episode represents the worst thing I’ve done in my life by far.”

Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr. had blamed the hack on “roguish behavior” by a handful of individuals. No one else was charged.

MLB could discipline the Cardinals, possibly with a fine or a loss of draft picks, but has said only that it looked forward to getting …

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