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Victor Conte, who engineered a system to supply hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to top competitors including MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He reached 75 years.

Official Inquiry and Criminal Cases

The federal government's probe of an additional venture Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the guilty verdicts of Jones, competitive biker Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Open Discussions and Prison Time

He, who served a third of a year in federal prison for illegal drug sales, talked publicly about his well-known clients. He appeared on TV to assert he had seen decorated Olympian Marion Jones inject herself with HGH, but consistently avoided implicating Barry Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Sport's Official Review

The federal case inspired the volume Game of Shadows. Shortly after the release of the book in that year, MLB commissioner Bud Selig appointed political figure Mitchell to look into PED use.

He revealed he provided steroids referred to as two specific substances and guided their use to dozens of professional sportspeople, such as Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Using PEDs represents a major risk to the integrity of the game,” the findings emphasized. “Widespread use by competitors of these drugs unfairly disadvantages the clean players who refuse to use them and raises questions about the validity of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the challenges didn’t develop overnight. He said everyone involved in baseball in the prior two decades – including leaders, management, the players’ association and players – shared some responsibility for what he termed the PED epoch.

Case Inception

The government's case into the company began with a revenue officer searching the business refuse. The defendant ultimately admitted guilt to a pair of the multiple accusations filed against him in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were caught deceiving grand jurors.

Further Legal Actions

The athlete's coach Anderson, admitted guilt to illegal substance sales linked to his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to three months in jail and the same duration of house arrest.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The baseball legend was indicted for lying to a grand jury about using PEDs and faced a trial in 2011. The government abandoned the case down the line when the prosecutors opted not to challenge an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.

A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he concluded his playing days after the 2007 season with 762 home runs, surpassing the milestone of 755 that Hank Aaron achieved from 1954-76. The athlete refuted knowingly using PEDs but has never been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to succeed, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He doubted whether the results in such legal cases merited the work.

Following his prison term, he resumed operations in the late 2000s by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had founded two decades earlier called SNAC System. He set up shop in the very same place that once housed Balco in Burlingame, California.

Defiant Stance

He remained defiant about his central role in providing custom PEDs to elite athletes. He maintained he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world already rife with rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To an expert, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, he may as well have been pushing illegal narcotics. “It concerns unlawful substance distribution. It's about using drugs in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. It's trafficking.”