The steroids scandal architect, Central Player in Notorious Sports Performance-Enhancing Drug Scandal, Succumbs at Age 75.

Victor Conte, who engineered a system to supply undetectable PEDs to professional athletes such as baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Jones in the past, has passed away. His age was 75.

Government Probe and Convictions

A national investigation into an additional venture established by Conte, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, in addition to coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte's Admissions and Prison Time

The Balco founder, who served a third of a year in federal prison for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his high-profile athletes. He was featured on TV to assert he had witnessed triple Olympic champion Jones self-administer with growth hormones, but never directly incriminating Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

The investigation resulted in the volume titled Game of Shadows. Just days following the book's publication in 2006, the sport's chief Selig appointed ex-senator George Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he sold steroids known as “the cream” and “the clear” and coached on their usage to many professional sportspeople, like Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances is a significant danger to the honesty of the competition,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by athletes of these compounds puts at a disadvantage the those who refuse to cheat who avoid them and raises questions about the accuracy of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the issues were not sudden. Mitchell claimed everyone involved in the sport in the previous twenty years – encompassing commissioners, management, the players’ association and players – were partly accountable for what he labeled the PED epoch.

How It Began

The government's case into Balco began with a tax agent digging through the company’s trash. Conte ended up pleading guilty to a pair of the 42 charges he faced in that year before a trial. Several of the 11 convicted people were convicted for deceiving grand jurors.

Associated Convictions

His fitness instructor Anderson, pleaded guilty to illegal substance sales stemming from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to a quarter year in jail and three months of restricted movement.

The Slugger's Case

The baseball legend was indicted for deceiving a investigative body about using PEDs and faced a trial in the early 2010s. The case was dismissed the charges down the line when the authorities chose not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.

A decorated player and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 season with 762 homers, breaking the mark of that number that Hank Aaron achieved from his career. He claimed he did not consciously consuming performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

He stated in an interview in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to triumph, but the federal representatives cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the results in such proceedings were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, he returned to work in that year by resuscitating a supplements company he had founded two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He located it in the same building that previously contained the original company in Burlingame.

Continued Justification

Conte stayed unrepentant about his major involvement in doling out custom PEDs to top sports stars. He maintained he simply helped “balance the odds” in a world teeming with doping athletes.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a at the time a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte may as well have been pushing cocaine or heroin. “This involves blatant drug dealing. You are talking about drug consumption in violation of federal law,” he stated in that period. “This isn't charity and it's not altruistic. It's trafficking.”