🔗 Share this article

Victor Conte, who engineered a system to distribute stealthy performance-enhancing drugs to elite sports stars featuring baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones years back, has died. His age was 75.

Official Inquiry and Criminal Cases

The federal government's probe of a separate firm Conte founded, the Bay Area lab, resulted in the guilty verdicts of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Public Statements and Legal Consequences

He, who spent several months in a penitentiary for illegal drug sales, discussed frankly about his famous former clients. He was featured on television to claim he had seen decorated Olympian Jones self-administer with human growth hormones, but never directly implicating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Sport's Official Review

The federal case led to the volume titled Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in 2006, MLB commissioner Bud Selig brought on political figure Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He admitted he sold steroids known as certain undetectable drugs and coached on their usage to many elite athletes, including Giambi, a star player, the Mitchell report said.

Using performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the honesty of the competition,” the report stated. “Widespread use by competitors of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the those who refuse to cheat who decline to take them and creates doubts about the legitimacy of baseball records.”

Mitchell indicated the problems took time to emerge. Mitchell claimed all parties in professional baseball in the previous twenty years – encompassing commissioners, management, the representative body and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he termed the doping period.

Investigation Origins

The government's case into the laboratory started when a tax agent examining the business refuse. The defendant ended up pleading guilty to a couple of the 42 charges he faced in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the 11 convicted people were ensnared for deceiving federal investigators.

Associated Convictions

The athlete's coach Anderson, confessed to steroid distribution charges linked to his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to 90 days in incarceration and an equal period of restricted movement.

The Slugger's Case

The home run king was accused of deceiving a grand jury about receiving PEDs and went on trial in the early 2010s. Prosecutors dropped the case down the line when the government decided not to appeal an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.

A seven-time National League MVP and star performer, he concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with a record home run tally, exceeding the milestone of 755 that Hank Aaron set from the 1950s to 1970s. Bonds denied knowingly using banned substances but has not been voted to the sport's hall of honor.

Later Years

He told the Associated Press in a 2010 interview that “competitors do cheat to win, but the federal representatives also bend the rules.” He doubted whether the outcomes in such legal cases were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, Conte resumed operations in that year by rebooting a health products venture he had started previously called his supplements brand. He located it in the identical location that once housed the original company in Burlingame.

Continued Justification

The controversial figure continued to justify about his central role in providing custom PEDs to elite athletes. He argued he simply helped “balance the odds” in a sports environment already rife with rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To a WADA member, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he may as well have been selling illegal narcotics. “It concerns blatant drug dealing. This refers to drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” the doctor remarked in the past. “This isn't charity and this is not some do-gooding. It's illegal sales.”