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Victor Conte, who devised a plan to distribute stealthy performance-enhancing drugs to top competitors featuring baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.

Official Inquiry and Criminal Cases

The federal government's inquiry regarding an additional venture Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the criminal findings of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield, as well as trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Open Discussions and Legal Consequences

The Balco founder, who served four months in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his well-known clients. He was featured on TV to assert he had seen decorated Olympian Marion Jones use a syringe with HGH, but always refrained from implicating Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation led to the book Game of Shadows. Just days following the publication date in that year, baseball Commissioner Selig hired former senate majority leader George Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he provided steroids known as two specific substances and advised on their use to dozens of professional sportspeople, including Jason Giambi, a star player, according to the report.

Using banned drugs represents a major risk to the fairness of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Prevalent consumption by competitors of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who refuse to use them and leads to skepticism about the legitimacy of historical stats.”

It was stated the challenges took time to emerge. He said everyone involved in baseball in the preceding decades – including leaders, club officials, the union and athletes themselves – were partly accountable for what he labeled “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The government's case into Balco started when a IRS investigator digging through the business refuse. The defendant ended up pleading guilty to a pair of the 42 charges he faced in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were ensnared for misleading the court.

Related Cases

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to illegal substance sales linked to his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to 90 days in prison and the same duration of restricted movement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

Bonds was charged with lying to a federal jury about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in the early 2010s. The case was dismissed the case after several years when the prosecutors opted not to appeal an overturned ruling to the federal apex court.

A decorated player and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds retired after the 2007 season with a record home run tally, exceeding the record of that number that Hank Aaron achieved from 1954-76. Bonds denied knowingly using PEDs but has not been voted to the sport's hall of honor.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

The former convict told the Associated Press in a 2010 interview that “competitors do cheat to triumph, but the federal representatives cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the outcomes in such legal cases were worth the resources.

Post-incarceration, he returned to work in 2007 by reviving a supplements company he had started two decades earlier called his supplements brand. He set up shop in the same building that once housed Balco in Burlingame.

Defiant Stance

He remained defiant about his major involvement in doling out custom PEDs to top sports stars. He argued he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world full of rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To a WADA member, a at the time a member of the WADA, he could be compared to selling illegal narcotics. “This involves blatant drug dealing. You are talking about using drugs in breach of national statutes,” he stated in the past. “This is not philanthropy and not a benevolent act. It's trafficking.”