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Victor Conte, who devised a plan to supply hard-to-detect PEDs to elite sports stars such as baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones in the past, has passed away. His age was 75.

Government Probe and Convictions

A national inquiry regarding a separate firm Conte founded, the Bay Area lab, led to the criminal findings of Marion Jones, competitive biker Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Open Discussions and Sentencing

He, who completed four months in federal prison for dealing steroids, talked publicly about his well-known clients. He appeared on TV to claim he had witnessed decorated Olympian Jones use a syringe with human growth hormones, but always refrained from incriminating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

This probe inspired the book titled Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in 2006, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig hired political figure Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

He revealed he sold steroids called certain undetectable drugs and guided their application to dozens of elite athletes, including Jason Giambi, a star player, according to the report.

Employing PEDs represents a major risk to the fairness of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Broad usage by competitors of such substances unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who refuse to use them and creates doubts about the validity of historical stats.”

The report noted the issues didn’t develop overnight. The report emphasized everyone involved in professional baseball in the previous twenty years – including leaders, management, the players’ association and players – bore partial blame for what he called “the steroids era”.

Case Inception

The government's case into the laboratory started when a tax agent examining the company’s trash. Conte ultimately admitted guilt to a couple of the multiple accusations against him in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Six of the individuals found guilty were convicted for lying to federal investigators.

Associated Convictions

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to drug dealing counts stemming from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to a quarter year in incarceration and an equal period of restricted movement.

His Court Proceedings

The baseball legend was indicted for providing false statements to a grand jury about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped his case after several years when the prosecutors opted not to challenge an overturned ruling to the highest court.

A decorated player and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he retired after the that season with 762 home runs, exceeding the mark of Aaron's total that Hank Aaron achieved from 1954-76. The athlete refuted knowingly using PEDs but has failed to gain entry to the sport's hall of honor.

Later Years

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to win, but the government agents and prosecutors engage in misconduct as well.” He doubted whether the conclusions in these trials justified the effort.

Following his prison term, Conte resumed operations in that year by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had started two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He located it in the same building that was home to the original company in Burlingame, California.

Continued Justification

He stayed unrepentant about his major involvement in doling out designer steroids to elite athletes. He argued he simply helped “level the playing field” in a sports environment teeming with doping athletes.

Outside Views

To an expert, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, Conte could be compared to selling cocaine or heroin. “This involves totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about using drugs in breach of national statutes,” the doctor remarked in that period. “This is not philanthropy and not a benevolent act. It's illegal sales.”