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Victor Conte, who masterminded a plan to provide stealthy banned substances to elite sports stars such as baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and sprinting gold medalist Marion Jones years back, has died. He reached 75 years.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national inquiry regarding another company Conte founded, the Bay Area lab, led to the criminal findings of Jones, top track cyclist Tammy Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Dana Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Open Discussions and Legal Consequences

Conte, who served a third of a year in a penitentiary for dealing steroids, discussed frankly about his well-known clients. He went on television to assert he had seen decorated Olympian Marion Jones inject herself with growth hormones, but always refrained from pointing the finger at Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

The investigation led to the book titled Game of Shadows. A week after the publication date in the mid-2000s, MLB commissioner Selig hired ex-senator Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he distributed steroids called two specific substances and guided their application to numerous professional sportspeople, like Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, as per the investigation.

Using PEDs is a significant danger to the integrity of the game,” the report stated. “Prevalent consumption by competitors of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the those who refuse to cheat who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the validity of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the issues didn’t develop overnight. The report emphasized all parties in professional baseball in the previous twenty years – including leaders, management, the players’ association and players – shared some responsibility for what he labeled “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The federal investigation into Balco started when a tax agent examining the corporate garbage. Conte ended up pleading guilty to two of the 42 charges against him in the mid-2000s before a trial. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were caught deceiving grand jurors.

Associated Convictions

The athlete's coach Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to illegal substance sales arising from his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to three months in jail and the same duration of home confinement.

The Slugger's Case

Bonds was accused of lying to a investigative body about receiving PEDs and went on trial in 2011. The case was dismissed his case down the line when the authorities chose not to appeal an overturned ruling to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and frequent All-Star, Bonds retired after the 2007 season with a record home run tally, breaking the record of that number that Aaron achieved from his career. Bonds denied intentionally taking PEDs but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to win, but the government agents and prosecutors also bend the rules.” He also questioned whether the outcomes in such legal cases were worth the resources.

Following his prison term, he resumed operations in that year by rebooting a supplements company he had launched previously called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the very same place that was home to Balco in Burlingame.

Unapologetic Views

He continued to justify about his central role in doling out tailored drugs to elite athletes. He claimed he simply helped “level the playing field” in a arena already rife with doping athletes.

Outside Views

To Dr Gary Wadler, a then-member of the WADA, Conte could be compared to selling illegal narcotics. “This involves blatant drug dealing. It's about drug consumption in violation of federal law,” he stated in 2007. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”