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Victor Conte, who engineered a system to distribute undetectable PEDs to elite sports stars such as MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Jones in the past, has died. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national inquiry regarding another company established by Conte, Balco, led to the guilty verdicts of Jones, competitive biker Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield, as well as trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Conte's Admissions and Prison Time

The Balco founder, who served several months in a federal facility for steroid distribution, discussed frankly about his high-profile athletes. He was featured on TV to assert he had witnessed three-time Olympic medalist Jones self-administer with growth hormones, but never directly implicating Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Baseball's Investigation

The federal case inspired the volume titled Game of Shadows. A week after the book's publication in 2006, the sport's chief Selig brought on ex-senator George Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He admitted he sold steroids referred to as two specific substances and advised on their usage to many elite athletes, including Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, as per the investigation.

Using PEDs represents a major risk to the fairness of the game,” the report stated. “Prevalent consumption by competitors of these drugs harms the clean players who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the legitimacy of historical stats.”

It was stated the problems were not sudden. The report emphasized each participant in the sport in the previous twenty years – covering leaders, management, the union and players – bore partial blame for what he called “the steroids era”.

Investigation Origins

The government's case into the laboratory began with a revenue officer searching the company’s trash. He ended up pleading guilty to a couple of the multiple accusations against him in that year prior to court proceedings. Several of the individuals found guilty were convicted for deceiving the court.

Further Legal Actions

The athlete's coach Anderson, pleaded guilty to illegal substance sales stemming from his Balco connections. He received a sentence to three months in incarceration and an equal period of restricted movement.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The baseball legend was accused of lying to a grand jury about using banned substances and went on trial in that year. The government abandoned the case four years later when the government decided not to challenge an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he ended his career after the that season with 762 homers, surpassing the record of that number that Hank Aaron achieved from his career. Bonds denied knowingly using PEDs but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

The former convict remarked to the press in a 2010 interview that “yes, athletes cheat to win, but the government agents and prosecutors engage in misconduct as well.” He wondered whether the conclusions in such legal cases justified the effort.

Following his prison term, he resumed operations in 2007 by reviving a supplements company he had founded years before called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He located it in the very same place that was home to Balco in Burlingame, California.

Unapologetic Views

He stayed unrepentant about his central role in doling out designer steroids to top sports stars. He argued he simply helped “even the competition” in a sports environment teeming with doping athletes.

Outside Views

To Dr Gary Wadler, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he may as well have been distributing cocaine or heroin. “You are talking about totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about using drugs in breach of national statutes,” the doctor remarked in the past. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”