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Victor Conte, who masterminded a plan to supply stealthy banned substances to elite sports stars including MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and track and field star Marion Jones decades ago, is deceased. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national probe of a separate firm set up by him, Balco, led to the criminal findings of Marion Jones, top track cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, as well as trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Open Discussions and Sentencing

The Balco founder, who completed several months in a penitentiary for illegal drug sales, discussed frankly about his high-profile athletes. He went on television to state he had seen triple Olympic champion Jones inject herself with human growth hormones, but consistently avoided implicating Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Baseball's Investigation

The federal case led to the publication Game of Shadows. A week after the publication date in that year, the sport's chief Selig brought on ex-senator George Mitchell to look into PED use.

He admitted he distributed steroids known as two specific substances and guided their usage to dozens of top performers, including Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the report.

“The illegal use of banned drugs is a significant danger to the fairness of the competition,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by players of such substances harms the clean players who refuse to use them and leads to skepticism about the legitimacy of sporting achievements.”

Mitchell indicated the challenges were not sudden. He said all parties in baseball in the prior two decades – encompassing commissioners, team executives, the union and players – were partly accountable for what he termed the doping period.

How It Began

The government's case into Balco began with a tax agent searching the company’s trash. He ultimately admitted guilt to two of the 42 charges against him in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the 11 convicted people were caught lying to the court.

Associated Convictions

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to illegal substance sales arising from his ties to the lab. The court gave him to 90 days in prison and an equal period of restricted movement.

His Court Proceedings

Bonds was indicted for lying to a investigative body about obtaining PEDs and faced a trial in that year. The case was dismissed his case down the line when the prosecutors opted not to appeal an reversed conviction to the federal apex court.

A seven-time National League MVP and star performer, Bonds ended his career after the that season with 762 home runs, exceeding the milestone of that number that Hank Aaron set from the 1950s to 1970s. The athlete refuted knowingly using banned substances but has failed to gain entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 interview that “competitors do cheat to win, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He doubted whether the outcomes in such legal cases merited the work.

Following his prison term, he returned to work in the late 2000s by rebooting a health products venture he had started two decades earlier called his supplements brand. He set up shop in the very same place that once housed the original company in the California city.

Continued Justification

Conte remained defiant about his key part in distributing designer steroids to professional competitors. He maintained he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world full of rule-breakers.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a then-member of the WADA, he may as well have been distributing illegal narcotics. “You are talking about totally illegal drug trafficking. It's about substance use in defiance of legal codes,” he stated in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. It's illegal sales.”