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Victor Conte, who masterminded a operation to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to elite sports stars including baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Marion Jones decades ago, has passed away. His age was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

An official investigation into another company established by Conte, Balco, led to the criminal findings of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, as well as various support personnel and professionals.

Conte's Admissions and Sentencing

He, who completed several months in a federal facility for steroid distribution, talked publicly about his well-known clients. He appeared on television to claim he had seen decorated Olympian Marion Jones use a syringe with growth hormones, but always refrained from implicating Barry Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation inspired the volume titled Game of Shadows. Just days following the book's publication in 2006, MLB commissioner Selig brought on former senate majority leader George Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he sold steroids called “the cream” and “the clear” and coached on their use to numerous professional sportspeople, such as Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of PEDs represents a major risk to the integrity of the competition,” the report stated. “Widespread use by athletes of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the those who refuse to cheat who refuse to use them and creates doubts about the validity of historical stats.”

The report noted the problems took time to emerge. He said everyone involved in professional baseball in the previous twenty years – including leaders, club officials, the union and athletes themselves – were partly accountable for what he called “the steroids era”.

Investigation Origins

The federal investigation into the company began with a revenue officer digging through the company’s trash. Conte eventually confessed to a pair of the numerous counts he faced in that year ahead of a court case. Six of the individuals found guilty were ensnared for lying to grand jurors.

Further Legal Actions

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to illegal substance sales linked to his ties to the lab. The court gave him to a quarter year in incarceration and an equal period of house arrest.

His Court Proceedings

Bonds was indicted for lying to a grand jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in that year. The government abandoned the charges down the line when the authorities chose not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the federal apex court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with 762 home runs, breaking the record of 755 that Aaron achieved from his career. He claimed he did not intentionally taking performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the sport's hall of honor.

After Incarceration

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to win, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the results in such legal cases justified the effort.

After serving his sentence, Conte resumed operations in the late 2000s by resuscitating a nutritional supplements business he had founded years before called his supplements brand. He set up shop in the identical location that was home to his former lab in Burlingame.

Continued Justification

Conte remained defiant about his key part in distributing tailored drugs to elite athletes. He maintained he simply helped “even the competition” in a sports environment teeming with rule-breakers.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a at the time a member of the WADA, Conte may as well have been selling hard drugs. “It concerns blatant drug dealing. It's about using drugs in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in the past. “This isn't charity and it's not altruistic. It's illegal sales.”