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Victor Conte, who masterminded a operation to provide hard-to-detect PEDs to elite sports stars such as MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones years back, has passed away. He was 75.

Official Inquiry and Convictions

An official investigation into another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), resulted in the convictions of Marion Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, as well as various support personnel and professionals.

Public Statements and Prison Time

The Balco founder, who served several months in a penitentiary for dealing steroids, discussed frankly about his famous former clients. He appeared on television to claim he had observed three-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones self-administer with human growth hormones, but consistently avoided implicating Barry Bonds, the baseball star.

The Mitchell Report

This probe led to the book titled Game of Shadows. Just days following the publication date in that year, baseball Commissioner Selig hired political figure Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He admitted he distributed steroids known as “the cream” and “the clear” and advised on their usage to dozens of elite athletes, including Giambi, a star player, according to the report.

Employing PEDs is a significant danger to the fairness of the game,” the report stated. “Broad usage by players of such substances puts at a disadvantage the those who refuse to cheat who refuse to use them and leads to skepticism about the accuracy of baseball records.”

It was stated the issues didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell claimed each participant in professional baseball in the preceding decades – encompassing commissioners, management, the players’ association and athletes themselves – were partly accountable for what he called the doping period.

How It Began

The government's case into the company started when a IRS investigator digging through the corporate garbage. He eventually confessed to a couple of the 42 charges against him in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Six of the 11 convicted people were caught deceiving the court.

Associated Convictions

Bonds’ personal trainer Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges linked to his ties to the lab. Anderson was sentenced to three months in incarceration and the same duration of home confinement.

The Slugger's Case

The home run king was indicted for lying to a federal jury about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped his case after several years when the authorities chose not to appeal an overturned ruling to the federal apex court.

A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he retired after the 2007 campaign with 762 homers, breaking the milestone of 755 that Aaron set from the 1950s to 1970s. Bonds denied consciously consuming performance-enhancing drugs but has failed to gain entry to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

He stated in an interview in a 2010 discussion that “competitors do cheat to win, but the officials and lawyers engage in misconduct as well.” He doubted whether the outcomes in such proceedings were worth the resources.

Post-incarceration, Conte got back in business in the late 2000s by resuscitating a health products venture he had launched two decades earlier called SNAC System. He operated in the very same place that previously contained Balco in Burlingame, California.

Continued Justification

He remained defiant about his key part in providing custom PEDs to top sports stars. He maintained he simply helped “balance the odds” in a arena full of rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To a WADA member, a former participant of the WADA, Conte may as well have been distributing illegal narcotics. “This involves unlawful substance distribution. You are talking about substance use in defiance of legal codes,” he stated in 2007. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”