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Victor Conte, who devised a operation to provide stealthy PEDs to elite sports stars including MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and Olympic track champion Jones in the past, has died. His age was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

The federal government's probe of a separate firm set up by him, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), culminated in the criminal findings of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, in addition to trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Public Statements and Legal Consequences

Conte, who served four months in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, talked publicly about his high-profile athletes. He appeared on TV to claim he had seen three-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones self-administer with HGH, but always refrained from pointing the finger at Barry Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

The federal case inspired the publication titled Game of Shadows. Just days following the release of the book in that year, baseball Commissioner Selig hired former senate majority leader Mitchell to investigate steroids.

Conte stated he sold steroids known as certain undetectable drugs and advised on their usage to many professional sportspeople, including Giambi, a star player, according to the report.

“The illegal use of PEDs represents a major risk to the integrity of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by athletes of these compounds puts at a disadvantage the those who refuse to cheat who decline to take them and raises questions about the accuracy of historical stats.”

Mitchell indicated the problems were not sudden. He said each participant in baseball in the previous twenty years – encompassing leaders, team executives, the representative body and players – were partly accountable for what he termed “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The federal investigation into Balco began with a IRS investigator searching the corporate garbage. Conte ended up pleading guilty to a couple of the 42 charges filed against him in the mid-2000s before a trial. Several of the individuals found guilty were ensnared for lying to the court.

Associated Convictions

Bonds’ personal trainer Anderson, confessed to drug dealing counts linked to his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to a quarter year in prison and three months of restricted movement.

His Court Proceedings

Bonds was accused of lying to a federal jury about using performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in that year. The government abandoned his case after several years when the authorities chose not to contest an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A decorated player and star performer, Bonds concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with 762 home runs, breaking the record of that number that Hank Aaron established from 1954-76. Bonds denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to win, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the conclusions in such legal cases were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, he got back in business in 2007 by resuscitating a health products venture he had started years before called SNAC System. He located it in the same building that once housed the original company in Burlingame, California.

Unapologetic Views

He stayed unrepentant about his central role in distributing designer steroids to elite athletes. He argued he simply helped “even the competition” in a arena already rife with cheaters.

Expert Opinions

To a WADA member, a then-member of the WADA, he may as well have been pushing cocaine or heroin. “It concerns totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about using drugs in violation of federal law,” the doctor remarked in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and this is not some do-gooding. It's illegal sales.”