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Victor Conte, who engineered a system to distribute undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to top competitors including MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and track and field star Jones years back, has passed away. He was 75.

Official Inquiry and Criminal Cases

An official inquiry regarding a separate firm set up by him, Balco, resulted in the criminal findings of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte's Admissions and Legal Consequences

He, who served several months in a penitentiary for dealing steroids, talked publicly about his high-profile athletes. He went on television to state he had witnessed triple Olympic champion Marion Jones self-administer with growth hormones, but consistently avoided implicating Barry Bonds, the baseball star.

The Mitchell Report

This probe inspired the publication Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in that year, MLB commissioner Bud Selig hired political figure Mitchell to look into PED use.

He admitted he sold steroids called two specific substances and advised on their application to dozens of elite athletes, including Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, as per the investigation.

Using banned drugs is a significant danger to the fairness of the sport,” the findings emphasized. “Broad usage by athletes of these drugs harms the honest athletes who refuse to use them and leads to skepticism about the accuracy of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the problems were not sudden. He said each participant in professional baseball in the prior two decades – including commissioners, club officials, the union and players – bore partial blame for what he termed “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The official probe into the company started when a IRS investigator examining the business refuse. Conte eventually confessed to two of the numerous counts against him in the mid-2000s ahead of a court case. Six of the defendants sentenced were convicted for lying to the court.

Related Cases

The athlete's coach Greg Anderson, confessed to steroid distribution charges stemming from his ties to the lab. He received a sentence to a quarter year in incarceration and an equal period of home confinement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The baseball legend was charged with providing false statements to a federal jury about using PEDs and went on trial in 2011. The government abandoned his case four years later when the government decided not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the supreme court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with a record home run tally, exceeding the record of Aaron's total that Aaron established from the 1950s to 1970s. He claimed he did not intentionally taking banned substances but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

He stated in an interview in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to win, but the government agents and prosecutors also bend the rules.” He doubted whether the results in these trials merited the work.

Following his prison term, Conte got back in business in the late 2000s by reviving a supplements company he had started two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the same building that was home to the original company in Burlingame, California.

Unapologetic Views

He remained defiant about his major involvement in doling out custom PEDs to top sports stars. He maintained he simply helped “balance the odds” in a sports environment full of cheaters.

Outside Views

To Dr Gary Wadler, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte may as well have been distributing hard drugs. “This involves totally illegal drug trafficking. It's about drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” the doctor remarked in that period. “This isn't charity and it's not altruistic. It's trafficking.”