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Victor Conte, who masterminded a operation to supply undetectable PEDs to elite sports stars such as baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and sprinting gold medalist Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national probe of an additional venture Conte founded, the Bay Area lab, led to the guilty verdicts of Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte's Admissions and Sentencing

The Balco founder, who spent 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 observed three-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones inject herself with growth hormones, but always refrained from incriminating Bonds, the baseball star.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation resulted in the book Game of Shadows. Just days following the book's publication in 2006, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig brought on former senate majority leader Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He revealed he distributed steroids referred to as certain undetectable drugs and guided their application to many professional sportspeople, such as Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the report.

Employing PEDs represents a major risk to the honesty of the game,” the findings emphasized. “Broad usage by athletes of these drugs harms the clean players who decline to take them and creates doubts about the accuracy of baseball records.”

The report noted the issues took time to emerge. He said all parties in the sport in the prior two decades – including leaders, team executives, the players’ association and players – were partly accountable for what he termed “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The federal investigation into the laboratory began with a IRS investigator examining the corporate garbage. He eventually confessed to a couple of the 42 charges he faced in the mid-2000s ahead of a court case. Six of the defendants sentenced were convicted for deceiving grand jurors.

Further Legal Actions

His fitness instructor Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to a quarter year in prison and three months of restricted movement.

The Slugger's Case

The baseball legend was accused of providing false statements to a grand jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in that year. The case was dismissed the charges four years later when the authorities chose not to contest an overturned ruling to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and star performer, Bonds retired after the 2007 campaign with 762 home runs, surpassing the mark of that number that Aaron achieved from his career. Bonds denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the sport's hall of honor.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

Conte told the Associated Press in a past conversation that “yes, athletes cheat to succeed, but the officials and lawyers cheat to win, too.” He doubted whether the conclusions in such proceedings justified the effort.

Post-incarceration, Conte returned to work in that year by resuscitating a health products venture he had started years before called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He located it in the very same place that was home to Balco in the California city.

Continued Justification

The controversial figure continued to justify about his key part in providing custom PEDs to top sports stars. He maintained he simply helped “even the competition” in a world full of cheaters.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he could be compared to pushing illegal narcotics. “It concerns totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about substance use in defiance of legal codes,” he stated in that period. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”