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Victor Conte, who engineered a system to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to elite sports stars featuring MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones years back, has died. He reached 75 years.

Government Probe and Convictions

An official probe of another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), culminated in the guilty verdicts of Marion Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, in addition to various support personnel and professionals.

Open Discussions and Legal Consequences

The Balco founder, who completed a third of a year in federal prison for dealing steroids, discussed frankly about his high-profile athletes. He was featured on television to assert he had witnessed triple Olympic champion Jones self-administer with HGH, but consistently avoided incriminating Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation resulted in the volume titled Game of Shadows. A week after the publication date in that year, the sport's chief Bud Selig appointed ex-senator Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

He admitted he sold steroids called “the cream” and “the clear” and advised on their application to dozens of elite athletes, including Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Using banned drugs represents a major risk to the fairness of the sport,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Prevalent consumption by players of such substances unfairly disadvantages the clean players who avoid them and creates doubts about the validity of sporting achievements.”

Mitchell indicated the challenges didn’t develop overnight. He said everyone involved in baseball in the previous twenty years – covering leaders, team executives, the union and athletes themselves – shared some responsibility for what he labeled the doping period.

Investigation Origins

The federal investigation into the company started when a revenue officer examining the corporate garbage. He ended up pleading guilty to two of the multiple accusations filed against him in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were ensnared for misleading grand jurors.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to drug dealing counts stemming from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to three months in incarceration and an equal period of restricted movement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

Bonds was indicted for providing false statements to a investigative body about obtaining PEDs and went on trial in the early 2010s. Prosecutors dropped the charges four years later when the government decided not to contest an overturned ruling to the supreme court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he concluded his playing days after the that season with a record home run tally, exceeding the mark of 755 that Aaron established from 1954-76. He claimed he did not consciously consuming banned substances but has not been voted to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to triumph, but the officials and lawyers cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the conclusions in such legal cases were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, Conte returned to work in that year by resuscitating a health products venture he had launched years before called his supplements brand. He operated in the same building that previously contained his former lab in Burlingame, California.

Unapologetic Views

He continued to justify about his central role in doling out tailored drugs to elite athletes. He maintained he simply helped “balance the odds” in a world already rife with rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To a WADA member, a at the time a member of the WADA, Conte may as well have been selling hard drugs. “It concerns blatant drug dealing. You are talking about drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” the doctor remarked in that period. “It's not a good deed and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”