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Victor Conte, who engineered a operation to supply stealthy performance-enhancing drugs to elite sports stars featuring baseball greats Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and sprinting gold medalist Marion Jones in the past, is deceased. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Criminal Cases

An official probe of a separate firm set up by him, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the criminal findings of Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Public Statements and Sentencing

Conte, who served four months in a federal facility for steroid distribution, spoke openly about his famous former clients. He went on TV to assert he had witnessed triple Olympic champion Jones use a syringe with human growth hormones, but consistently avoided implicating Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Sport's Official Review

The federal case resulted in the volume Game of Shadows. A week after the book's publication in that year, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig appointed political figure Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He revealed he distributed steroids referred to as “the cream” and “the clear” and advised on their use to dozens of top performers, such as Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of PEDs poses a serious threat to the honesty of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by players of such substances puts at a disadvantage the honest athletes who avoid them and raises questions about the accuracy of baseball records.”

Mitchell indicated the issues took time to emerge. He said everyone involved in professional baseball in the preceding decades – including leaders, team executives, the union and athletes themselves – shared some responsibility for what he called the PED epoch.

Investigation Origins

The official probe into the company began with a IRS investigator searching the corporate garbage. Conte ended up pleading guilty to a couple of the numerous counts he faced in the mid-2000s ahead of a court case. Several of the individuals found guilty were caught misleading grand jurors.

Further Legal Actions

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, confessed to illegal substance sales stemming from his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to three months in prison and three months of home confinement.

His Court Proceedings

The baseball legend was charged with providing false statements to a investigative body about using performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped his case after several years when the government decided not to challenge an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he concluded his playing days after the that season with 762 homers, exceeding the mark of 755 that Aaron set from his career. The athlete refuted consciously consuming banned substances but has not been voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Later Years

He stated in an interview in a 2010 discussion that “yes, athletes cheat to succeed, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the results in these trials were worth the resources.

Post-incarceration, he returned to work in the late 2000s by resuscitating a health products venture he had launched two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He operated in the same building that once housed his former lab in the California city.

Unapologetic Views

The controversial figure stayed unrepentant about his major involvement in doling out designer steroids to elite athletes. He maintained he simply helped “even the competition” in a world teeming with doping athletes.

Expert Opinions

To Dr Gary Wadler, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte could be compared to distributing hard drugs. “You are talking about blatant drug dealing. This refers to substance use in breach of national statutes,” Wadler said in 2007. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”