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Victor Conte, who devised a plan to distribute undetectable banned substances to professional athletes featuring baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and track and field star Marion Jones years back, has passed away. His age was 75.

Official Inquiry and Criminal Cases

An official investigation into another company established by Conte, the Bay Area lab, culminated in the criminal findings of Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Open Discussions and Legal Consequences

Conte, who completed several months in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, talked publicly about his famous former clients. He was featured on broadcast media to assert he had witnessed three-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones inject herself with HGH, but consistently avoided implicating Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Baseball's Investigation

The investigation inspired the publication Game of Shadows. Just days following the release of the book in the mid-2000s, MLB commissioner Selig appointed ex-senator Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

He admitted he provided steroids referred to as certain undetectable drugs and guided their use to dozens of elite athletes, including Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Employing banned drugs poses a serious threat to the fairness of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by athletes of these drugs unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the accuracy of historical stats.”

The report noted the issues didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell claimed each participant in professional baseball in the preceding decades – encompassing commissioners, club officials, the union and players – shared some responsibility for what he called the doping period.

Investigation Origins

The federal investigation into the laboratory started when a IRS investigator digging through the company’s trash. He ultimately admitted guilt to two of the 42 charges filed against him in that year before a trial. Several of the defendants sentenced were ensnared for lying to the court.

Related Cases

The athlete's coach Greg Anderson, confessed to illegal substance sales stemming from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to three months in jail and the same duration of home confinement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The home run king was charged with deceiving a federal jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in that year. The government abandoned the charges down the line when the prosecutors opted not to contest an reversed conviction to the supreme court.

A multiple MVP winner and frequent All-Star, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 season with 762 home runs, surpassing the mark of Aaron's total that Aaron established from 1954-76. The athlete refuted intentionally taking PEDs but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

Conte stated in an interview in a 2010 discussion that “competitors do cheat to triumph, but the federal representatives also bend the rules.” He also questioned whether the outcomes in these trials justified the effort.

After serving his sentence, Conte returned to work in the late 2000s by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had founded years before called SNAC System. He operated in the same building that once housed the original company in the California city.

Defiant Stance

Conte continued to justify about his key part in distributing tailored drugs to professional competitors. He argued he simply helped “balance the odds” in a sports environment already rife with cheaters.

Outside Views

To an expert, a then-member of the WADA, he may as well have been distributing cocaine or heroin. “You are talking about totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about substance use in defiance of legal codes,” Wadler said in 2007. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. It's illegal sales.”