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The man behind the scheme, who engineered a plan to provide stealthy PEDs to top competitors featuring MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and track and field star Jones decades ago, has died. He reached 75 years.

Government Probe and Criminal Cases

The federal government's inquiry regarding another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the criminal findings of Jones, competitive biker Tammy Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte's Admissions and Prison Time

The Balco founder, who completed several months in federal prison for illegal drug sales, talked publicly about his high-profile athletes. He was featured on broadcast media to claim he had seen three-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones inject herself with HGH, but never directly pointing the finger at Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

Baseball's Investigation

The investigation inspired the publication titled Game of Shadows. Shortly after the publication date in that year, MLB commissioner Selig appointed former senate majority leader Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he distributed steroids called two specific substances and coached on their use to many top performers, such as Giambi, a star player, according to the report.

Using PEDs is a significant danger to the fairness of the sport,” the findings emphasized. “Widespread use by competitors of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the clean players who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the legitimacy of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the challenges didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell claimed each participant in professional baseball in the preceding decades – including commissioners, management, the union and players – shared some responsibility for what he termed “the steroids era”.

Investigation Origins

The government's case into the laboratory started when a tax agent searching the company’s trash. The defendant eventually confessed to two of the 42 charges filed against him in 2005 before a trial. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were ensnared for lying to federal investigators.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to drug dealing counts arising from his Balco connections. Anderson was sentenced to three months in prison and three months of house arrest.

Bonds' Legal Battles

Bonds was charged with lying to a investigative body about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in the early 2010s. Prosecutors dropped his case down the line when the government decided not to contest an overturned ruling to the supreme court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he retired after the 2007 season with 762 homers, exceeding the record of Aaron's total that Hank Aaron set from his career. He claimed he did not intentionally taking banned substances but has failed to gain entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Later Years

He remarked to the press in a 2010 interview that “yes, athletes cheat to triumph, but the federal representatives cheat to win, too.” He doubted whether the results in these trials merited the work.

After serving his sentence, Conte resumed operations in the late 2000s by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had started years before called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the very same place that previously contained his former lab in Burlingame, California.

Continued Justification

He continued to justify about his major involvement in providing tailored drugs to elite athletes. He claimed he simply helped “even the competition” in a sports environment already rife with rule-breakers.

Critical Perspectives

To a WADA member, a at the time a member of the global anti-doping body, he could be compared to distributing cocaine or heroin. “You are talking about unlawful substance distribution. You are talking about substance use in breach of national statutes,” Wadler said in 2007. “It's not a good deed and not a benevolent act. It's illegal sales.”