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Victor Conte, who devised a system to distribute stealthy performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes featuring baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and Olympic track champion Jones in the past, has died. He reached 75 years.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national probe of another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), culminated in the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte's Admissions and Prison Time

Conte, who served four months in a penitentiary for steroid distribution, spoke openly about his famous former clients. He was featured on TV to assert he had seen decorated Olympian Marion Jones self-administer with human growth hormones, but never directly implicating Barry Bonds, the baseball star.

Baseball's Investigation

The investigation resulted in the book titled Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in 2006, MLB commissioner Bud Selig appointed ex-senator Mitchell to look into PED use.

He admitted he sold steroids referred to as two specific substances and coached on their application to numerous elite athletes, including Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the report.

Using PEDs represents a major risk to the integrity of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by athletes of these drugs unfairly disadvantages the clean players who refuse to use them and creates doubts about the validity of baseball records.”

Mitchell indicated the issues were not sudden. Mitchell claimed all parties in professional baseball in the preceding decades – including commissioners, team executives, the union and players – bore partial blame for what he termed the doping period.

Case Inception

The federal investigation into the laboratory began with a tax agent searching the company’s trash. Conte eventually confessed to a pair of the multiple accusations against him in that year ahead of a court case. Half a dozen of the 11 convicted people were ensnared for lying to grand jurors.

Further Legal Actions

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his Balco connections. He received a sentence to a quarter year in prison and the same duration of restricted movement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The baseball legend was charged with providing false statements to a federal jury about obtaining banned substances and stood trial in that year. The case was dismissed the charges four years later when the authorities chose not to contest an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and star performer, he retired after the that season with a record home run tally, exceeding the milestone of Aaron's total that Hank Aaron set from the 1950s to 1970s. He claimed he did not intentionally taking performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

Conte remarked to the press in a 2010 interview that “sportspeople break rules to triumph, but the officials and lawyers cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the results in such legal cases were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, Conte got back in business in the late 2000s by reviving a supplements company he had launched two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the very same place that was home to the original company in the California city.

Continued Justification

Conte continued to justify about his major involvement in doling out tailored drugs to elite athletes. He claimed he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world already rife with cheaters.

Critical Perspectives

To an expert, a former participant of the global anti-doping body, he was essentially pushing illegal narcotics. “This involves unlawful substance distribution. This refers to using drugs in breach of national statutes,” Wadler said in that period. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”