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Victor Conte, who devised a system to distribute undetectable PEDs to top competitors featuring baseball greats Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones in the past, has passed away. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national inquiry regarding another company Conte founded, Balco, led to the convictions of Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, as well as various support personnel and professionals.

Open Discussions and Prison Time

The Balco founder, who spent four months in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, discussed frankly about his high-profile athletes. He appeared on TV to assert he had seen triple Olympic champion Marion Jones use a syringe with HGH, but never directly incriminating Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Baseball's Investigation

The federal case inspired the volume titled Game of Shadows. Shortly after the book's publication in 2006, the sport's chief Selig hired former senate majority leader George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

He admitted he distributed steroids referred to as “the cream” and “the clear” and coached on their use to numerous professional sportspeople, including Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the report.

Employing PEDs represents a major risk to the integrity of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Prevalent consumption by competitors of these compounds harms the honest athletes who refuse to use them and creates doubts about the legitimacy of historical stats.”

Mitchell indicated the challenges didn’t develop overnight. The report emphasized each participant in baseball in the preceding decades – encompassing commissioners, team executives, the representative body and players – bore partial blame for what he called the doping period.

Case Inception

The government's case into Balco began with a revenue officer searching the company’s trash. He eventually confessed to two of the multiple accusations against him in 2005 ahead of a court case. Several of the defendants sentenced were ensnared for misleading federal investigators.

Related Cases

Bonds’ personal trainer Anderson, admitted guilt to steroid distribution charges linked to his ties to the lab. He received a sentence to 90 days in incarceration and three months of restricted movement.

His Court Proceedings

Bonds was charged with lying to a grand jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped his case four years later when the prosecutors opted not to challenge an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and star performer, he retired after the 2007 campaign with a record home run tally, breaking the record of that number that Hank Aaron achieved from his career. The athlete refuted intentionally taking performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Later Years

The former convict told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “yes, athletes cheat to win, but the officials and lawyers engage in misconduct as well.” He wondered whether the results in such legal cases merited the work.

Post-incarceration, he resumed operations in 2007 by reviving a health products venture he had started years before called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the same building that previously contained Balco in the California city.

Defiant Stance

Conte remained defiant about his major involvement in providing designer steroids to top sports stars. He claimed he simply helped “level the playing field” in a arena teeming with doping athletes.

Outside Views

To Dr Gary Wadler, a at the time a member of the WADA, he may as well have been pushing cocaine or heroin. “It concerns blatant drug dealing. This refers to using drugs in violation of federal law,” he stated in the past. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”