Victor Conte, Key Figure in Notorious Sports Performance-Enhancing Drug Scandal, Succumbs at Age 75.

The man behind the scheme, who devised a system to distribute undetectable PEDs to elite sports stars featuring baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones decades ago, is deceased. He reached 75 years.

Government Probe and Criminal Cases

A national investigation into another company set up by him, the Bay Area lab, led to the guilty verdicts of Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Public Statements and Legal Consequences

The Balco founder, who served several months in a penitentiary for dealing steroids, spoke openly about his well-known clients. He went on broadcast media to state he had observed triple Olympic champion Marion Jones self-administer with HGH, but never directly pointing the finger at Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

The investigation led to the volume Game of Shadows. Just days following the release of the book in 2006, MLB commissioner Selig hired former senate majority leader George Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He admitted he provided steroids referred to as two specific substances and coached on their usage to dozens of top performers, including Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, as per the investigation.

Using PEDs represents a major risk to the integrity of the game,” the report stated. “Widespread use by competitors of such substances puts at a disadvantage the honest athletes who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the validity of historical stats.”

The report noted the problems didn’t develop overnight. He said everyone involved in the sport in the preceding decades – encompassing leaders, team executives, the representative body and athletes themselves – were partly accountable for what he labeled the PED epoch.

Case Inception

The official probe into the laboratory began with a IRS investigator searching the business refuse. He eventually confessed to a pair of the 42 charges filed against him in 2005 before a trial. Six of the defendants sentenced were convicted for lying to the court.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Anderson, confessed to drug dealing counts arising from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to 90 days in jail and three months of restricted movement.

His Court Proceedings

The home run king was accused of lying to a grand jury about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped the case four years later when the prosecutors opted not to challenge an overturned ruling to the federal apex court.

A multiple MVP winner and star performer, he concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with a record home run tally, surpassing the record of that number that Hank Aaron achieved from the 1950s to 1970s. He claimed he did not knowingly using PEDs but has failed to gain entry to the sport's hall of honor.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

He told the Associated Press in a past conversation that “yes, athletes cheat to win, but the officials and lawyers engage in misconduct as well.” He wondered whether the conclusions in such proceedings were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, he returned to work in 2007 by reviving a health products venture he had founded two decades earlier called his supplements brand. He located it in the very same place that once housed his former lab in Burlingame.

Defiant Stance

Conte continued to justify about his central role in distributing designer steroids to professional competitors. He claimed he simply helped “even the competition” in a world full of doping athletes.

Outside Views

To Dr Gary Wadler, a former participant of the WADA, he could be compared to distributing cocaine or heroin. “You are talking about totally illegal drug trafficking. It's about using drugs in breach of national statutes,” the doctor remarked in 2007. “This isn't charity and this is not some do-gooding. It's trafficking.”