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Victor Conte, who engineered a operation to supply undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to elite sports stars including baseball greats Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and sprinting gold medalist Jones in the past, has died. He reached 75 years.

Federal Investigation and Legal Outcomes

The federal government's probe of another company Conte founded, the Bay Area lab, led to the criminal findings of Jones, competitive biker Thomas, and retired NFL player Dana Stubblefield, as well as trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Open Discussions and Prison Time

The Balco founder, who served several months in a federal facility for dealing steroids, talked publicly about his high-profile athletes. He was featured on broadcast media to assert he had observed triple Olympic champion Marion Jones self-administer with HGH, but never directly pointing the finger at Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

The investigation inspired the book Game of Shadows. Just days following the release of the book in 2006, MLB commissioner Selig appointed political figure George Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He revealed he provided steroids known as two specific substances and advised on their usage to numerous elite athletes, including Jason Giambi, a star player, the Mitchell report said.

Employing PEDs is a significant danger to the integrity of the sport,” the report stated. “Widespread use by competitors of these compounds harms the honest athletes who avoid them and raises questions about the accuracy of historical stats.”

The report noted the issues didn’t develop overnight. He said everyone involved in the sport in the previous twenty years – including commissioners, management, the players’ association and athletes themselves – shared some responsibility for what he labeled the PED epoch.

How It Began

The government's case into the company began with a tax agent examining the corporate garbage. He ended up pleading guilty to a pair of the numerous counts he faced in 2005 ahead of a court case. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were convicted for deceiving federal investigators.

Further Legal Actions

The athlete's coach Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to drug dealing counts stemming from his Balco connections. He received a sentence to three months in prison and an equal period of restricted movement.

His Court Proceedings

The baseball legend was charged with providing false statements to a federal jury about obtaining PEDs and went on trial in the early 2010s. Prosecutors dropped the case four years later when the government decided not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the supreme court.

A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he concluded his playing days after the that season with a record home run tally, exceeding the record of that number that Hank Aaron set from 1954-76. He claimed he did not intentionally taking performance-enhancing drugs but has failed to gain entry to the sport's hall of honor.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

He stated in an interview in a 2010 interview that “sportspeople break rules to succeed, but the officials and lawyers cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the conclusions in such legal cases justified the effort.

Following his prison term, he resumed operations in that year by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had launched previously called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He operated in the identical location that once housed his former lab in the California city.

Defiant Stance

Conte continued to justify about his major involvement in providing designer steroids to top sports stars. He argued he simply helped “level the playing field” in a sports environment teeming with cheaters.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a former participant of the global anti-doping body, he may as well have been distributing hard drugs. “You are talking about unlawful substance distribution. You are talking about substance use in defiance of legal codes,” Wadler said in the past. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. It's trafficking.”