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Victor Conte, who devised a plan to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones in the past, has passed away. He reached 75 years.

Federal Investigation and Criminal Cases

A national investigation into a separate firm set up by him, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the guilty verdicts of Marion Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, in addition to various support personnel and professionals.

Open Discussions and Sentencing

Conte, who served a third of a year in a federal facility for steroid distribution, talked publicly about his famous former clients. He appeared on broadcast media to assert he had seen decorated Olympian Marion Jones inject herself with HGH, but never directly incriminating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Sport's Official Review

This probe led to the publication Game of Shadows. Just days following the release of the book in 2006, baseball Commissioner Selig appointed ex-senator Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He revealed he sold steroids known as two specific substances and advised on their application to numerous top performers, such as Giambi, a star player, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances is a significant danger to the integrity of the competition,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Prevalent consumption by competitors of these drugs harms the clean players who refuse to use them and raises questions about the accuracy of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the issues took time to emerge. He said each participant in baseball in the preceding decades – including leaders, management, the players’ association and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he termed “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The government's case into the laboratory started when a revenue officer searching the business refuse. He ended up pleading guilty to a couple of the numerous counts against him in 2005 ahead of a court case. Several of the 11 convicted people were convicted for deceiving federal investigators.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to three months in incarceration and three months of home confinement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

Bonds was accused of providing false statements to a investigative body about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in the early 2010s. The government abandoned the case four years later when the authorities chose not to contest an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds retired after the 2007 season with 762 home runs, exceeding the milestone of that number that Hank Aaron set from his career. The athlete refuted knowingly using banned substances but has failed to gain entry 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 government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the outcomes in these trials justified the effort.

Following his prison term, he returned to work in that year by rebooting a health products venture he had launched two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the same building that previously contained the original company in Burlingame.

Defiant Stance

Conte remained defiant about his key part in distributing custom PEDs to top sports stars. He claimed he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world already rife with doping athletes.

Outside Views

To an expert, a at the time a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he may as well have been pushing illegal narcotics. “You are talking about totally illegal drug trafficking. This refers to using drugs in defiance of legal codes,” the doctor remarked in 2007. “It's not a good deed and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”