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Victor Conte, who engineered a plan to provide hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes such as baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and Olympic track champion Marion Jones in the past, has passed away. His age was 75.

Government Probe and Criminal Cases

The federal government's probe of another company set up by him, Balco, culminated in the criminal findings of Marion Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Dana Stubblefield, as well as trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Open Discussions and Prison Time

He, who served a third of a year in a penitentiary for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his high-profile athletes. He went on television to state he had observed decorated Olympian Jones inject herself with growth hormones, but consistently avoided pointing the finger at Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

The federal case led to the book titled Game of Shadows. A week after the publication date in 2006, MLB commissioner Bud Selig brought on political figure Mitchell to investigate steroids.

Conte stated he provided steroids referred to as “the cream” and “the clear” and advised on their usage to numerous professional sportspeople, such as Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, according to the report.

“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances is a significant danger to the fairness of the game,” the report stated. “Broad usage by athletes of such substances harms the clean players who decline to take them and creates doubts about the legitimacy of historical stats.”

It was stated the problems didn’t develop overnight. The report emphasized each participant in baseball in the prior two decades – covering commissioners, team executives, the players’ association and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he called “the steroids era”.

Case Inception

The federal investigation into the laboratory started when a IRS investigator searching the business refuse. The defendant eventually confessed to a couple of the numerous counts he faced in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Several of the 11 convicted people were caught deceiving grand jurors.

Associated Convictions

The athlete's coach Greg Anderson, confessed to steroid distribution charges stemming from his ties to the lab. He received a sentence to 90 days in incarceration and three months of house arrest.

His Court Proceedings

The home run king was accused of lying to a grand jury about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in 2011. The case was dismissed the charges after several years when the authorities chose not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.

A seven-time National League MVP and frequent All-Star, he concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with 762 home runs, breaking the milestone of that number that Hank Aaron established from the 1950s to 1970s. He claimed he did not knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

Conte told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “yes, athletes cheat to succeed, but the government agents and prosecutors also bend the rules.” He wondered whether the results in such legal cases merited the work.

Following his prison term, Conte resumed operations in that year by reviving a nutritional supplements business he had started previously called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He located it in the same building that was home to Balco in Burlingame.

Continued Justification

Conte stayed unrepentant about his key part in providing custom PEDs to elite athletes. He argued he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world teeming with doping athletes.

Critical Perspectives

To a WADA member, a at the time a member of the global anti-doping body, he was essentially distributing illegal narcotics. “This involves unlawful substance distribution. You are talking about substance use in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in the past. “This is not philanthropy and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”