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Victor Conte, who masterminded a plan to provide hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and Olympic track champion Marion Jones decades ago, is deceased. He was 75.

Official Inquiry and Convictions

A national probe of another company Conte founded, Balco, culminated in the convictions of Jones, competitive biker Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, as well as trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Open Discussions and Sentencing

He, who spent a third of a year in federal prison for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his famous former clients. He went on television to assert he had seen decorated Olympian Jones use a syringe with human growth hormones, but consistently avoided pointing the finger at Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

The investigation inspired the publication titled Game of Shadows. Just days following the publication date in the mid-2000s, MLB commissioner Selig appointed political figure George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

Conte stated he distributed steroids known as two specific substances and coached on their use to dozens of professional sportspeople, such as Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, according to the report.

“The illegal use of PEDs poses a serious threat to the fairness of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Broad usage by competitors of such substances puts at a disadvantage the honest athletes who refuse to use them and leads to skepticism about the accuracy of sporting achievements.”

Mitchell indicated the problems were not sudden. He said all parties in professional baseball in the prior two decades – including commissioners, management, the representative body and players – bore partial blame for what he labeled the PED epoch.

How It Began

The government's case into the company began with a tax agent digging through the corporate garbage. Conte ultimately admitted guilt to a couple of the 42 charges against him in that year ahead of a court case. Six of the 11 convicted people were caught misleading the court.

Associated Convictions

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to illegal substance sales linked to his ties to the lab. The court gave him to 90 days in prison and the same duration of restricted movement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The home run king was charged with deceiving a investigative body about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in 2011. Prosecutors dropped his case after several years when the prosecutors opted not to challenge an overturned ruling to the federal apex court.

A seven-time National League MVP and frequent All-Star, he retired after the that season with a record home run tally, exceeding the milestone of Aaron's total that Hank Aaron achieved from his career. He claimed he did not consciously consuming banned substances but has not been voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Later Years

Conte remarked to the press in a 2010 discussion that “yes, athletes cheat to triumph, but the officials and lawyers cheat to win, too.” He doubted whether the conclusions in such legal cases merited the work.

After serving his sentence, Conte returned to work in the late 2000s by reviving a nutritional supplements business he had started previously called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He operated in the same building that was home to the original company in Burlingame.

Continued Justification

He stayed unrepentant about his central role in distributing designer steroids to professional competitors. He claimed he simply helped “even the competition” in a sports environment already rife with rule-breakers.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a former participant of the global anti-doping body, Conte may as well have been distributing cocaine or heroin. “It concerns unlawful substance distribution. It's about drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” Wadler said in the past. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”