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Victor Conte, who engineered a operation to supply hard-to-detect PEDs to elite sports stars featuring baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and Olympic track champion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

The federal government's probe of another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the criminal findings of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, along with trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Open Discussions and Sentencing

The Balco founder, who served a third of a year in federal prison for illegal drug sales, discussed frankly about his famous former clients. He was featured on broadcast media to claim he had observed three-time Olympic medalist Jones use a syringe with human growth hormones, but never directly implicating Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

This probe inspired the book titled Game of Shadows. A week after the book's publication in that year, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig brought on political figure Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

He revealed he provided steroids called certain undetectable drugs and coached on their usage to many elite athletes, including Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Using PEDs poses a serious threat to the fairness of the game,” the findings emphasized. “Broad usage by competitors of such substances unfairly disadvantages the clean players who avoid them and leads to skepticism about the accuracy of historical stats.”

The report noted the challenges didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell claimed everyone involved in baseball in the preceding decades – including commissioners, team executives, the players’ association and players – were partly accountable for what he labeled the PED epoch.

How It Began

The federal investigation into the laboratory began with a revenue officer digging through the company’s trash. Conte ultimately admitted guilt to a couple of the numerous counts filed against him in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Six of the individuals found guilty were caught deceiving federal investigators.

Associated Convictions

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, confessed to drug dealing counts stemming from his involvement with Balco. He received a sentence to three months in incarceration and an equal period of home confinement.

His Court Proceedings

The home run king was charged with lying to a federal jury about receiving banned substances and faced a trial in the early 2010s. The government abandoned the case down the line when the authorities chose not to appeal an reversed conviction to the supreme court.

A decorated player and frequent All-Star, he concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with 762 homers, exceeding the milestone of 755 that Aaron set from the 1950s to 1970s. The athlete refuted knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has not been voted to the sport's hall of honor.

Later Years

Conte remarked to the press in a 2010 interview that “sportspeople break rules to succeed, but the officials and lawyers also bend the rules.” He also questioned whether the outcomes in such legal cases merited the work.

After serving his sentence, he got back in business in 2007 by reviving a health products venture he had started two decades earlier called SNAC System. He set up shop in the same building that previously contained Balco in Burlingame, California.

Defiant Stance

Conte continued to justify about his major involvement in doling out custom PEDs to professional competitors. He argued he simply helped “balance the odds” in a sports environment full of rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To a WADA member, a at the time a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he was essentially pushing illegal narcotics. “You are talking about unlawful substance distribution. This refers to drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” he stated in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”