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Victor Conte, who engineered a plan to distribute hard-to-detect PEDs to top competitors such as baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and sprinting gold medalist Marion Jones years back, has passed away. His age was 75.

Government Probe and Criminal Cases

An official inquiry regarding an additional venture set up by him, Balco, led to the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and retired NFL player Dana Stubblefield, in addition to trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Conte's Admissions and Sentencing

The Balco founder, who served four months in federal prison for dealing steroids, talked publicly about his well-known clients. He went on broadcast media to claim he had seen three-time Olympic medalist Jones inject herself with HGH, but always refrained from pointing the finger at Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation resulted in the book Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in 2006, baseball Commissioner Selig appointed ex-senator George Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He revealed he distributed steroids known as two specific substances and advised on their usage to numerous elite athletes, such as Jason Giambi, a star player, according to the report.

Using banned drugs is a significant danger to the fairness of the sport,” the report stated. “Widespread use by players of these drugs harms the those who refuse to cheat who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the validity of baseball records.”

Mitchell indicated the problems didn’t develop overnight. The report emphasized all parties in the sport in the prior two decades – including leaders, club officials, the representative body and players – shared some responsibility for what he called “the steroids era”.

Case Inception

The official probe into the company started when a IRS investigator digging through the company’s trash. He ended up pleading guilty to a couple of the numerous counts against him in 2005 ahead of a court case. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were convicted for lying to grand jurors.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Anderson, confessed to illegal substance sales linked to his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to 90 days in jail and an equal period of home confinement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

Bonds was indicted for deceiving a investigative body about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped the charges down the line when the government decided not to appeal an overturned ruling to the supreme court.

A multiple MVP winner and frequent All-Star, he ended his career after the 2007 season with 762 home runs, breaking the mark of Aaron's total that Aaron achieved from the 1950s to 1970s. The athlete refuted intentionally taking banned substances but has not been voted to the Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

Conte told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “competitors do cheat to triumph, but the officials and lawyers also bend the rules.” He also questioned whether the conclusions in such legal cases were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, Conte resumed operations in that year by rebooting a supplements company he had launched years before called SNAC System. He set up shop in the identical location that previously contained his former lab in the California city.

Continued Justification

Conte stayed unrepentant about his major involvement in providing designer steroids to elite athletes. He claimed he simply helped “even the competition” in a sports environment already rife with cheaters.

Critical Perspectives

To an expert, a former participant of the WADA, he was essentially selling hard drugs. “You are talking about unlawful substance distribution. It's about substance use in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and not a benevolent act. It's illegal sales.”