Victor Conte, Key Figure in Infamous Sports Doping Scandal, Dies at 75.

The orchestrator of the plot, who devised a plan to supply stealthy performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and sprinting gold medalist Jones decades ago, has passed away. His age was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national investigation into an additional venture set up by him, the Bay Area lab, led to the guilty verdicts of Marion Jones, competitive biker Tammy Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Dana Stubblefield, in addition to coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Open Discussions and Prison Time

He, who spent four months in a federal facility for dealing steroids, spoke openly about his high-profile athletes. He went on TV to claim he had witnessed decorated Olympian Marion Jones inject herself with growth hormones, but always refrained from implicating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Sport's Official Review

The investigation inspired the volume Game of Shadows. Just days following the release of the book in that year, the sport's chief Selig hired former senate majority leader George Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he sold steroids called two specific substances and advised on their usage to dozens of professional sportspeople, like Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, according to the report.

Using performance-enhancing substances is a significant danger to the integrity of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Broad usage by players of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who decline to take them and creates doubts about the accuracy of baseball records.”

Mitchell indicated the challenges didn’t develop overnight. He said all parties in baseball in the previous twenty years – including leaders, team executives, the representative body and players – bore partial blame for what he termed the PED epoch.

Case Inception

The official probe into the laboratory was initiated by a revenue officer digging through the business refuse. The defendant ultimately admitted guilt to a pair of the numerous counts he faced in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Six of the individuals found guilty were convicted for lying to federal investigators.

Further Legal Actions

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, confessed to steroid distribution charges stemming from his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to 90 days in jail and three months of home confinement.

The Slugger's Case

The home run king was charged with providing false statements to a grand jury about using performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in that year. The government abandoned his case after several years when the authorities chose not to appeal an overturned ruling to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he retired after the 2007 campaign with 762 homers, surpassing the mark of Aaron's total that Aaron set from 1954-76. The athlete refuted intentionally taking performance-enhancing drugs but has failed to gain entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Later Years

Conte remarked to the press in a 2010 interview that “sportspeople break rules to triumph, but the government agents and prosecutors also bend the rules.” He doubted whether the results in such legal cases were worth the resources.

Post-incarceration, Conte resumed operations in that year by resuscitating a health products venture he had founded years before called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the identical location that previously contained Balco in Burlingame, California.

Defiant Stance

He remained defiant about his key part in distributing custom PEDs to elite athletes. He argued he simply helped “balance the odds” in a world teeming with rule-breakers.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a former participant of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he may as well have been selling cocaine or heroin. “This involves unlawful substance distribution. You are talking about drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” the doctor remarked in that period. “It's not a good deed and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”