🔗 Share this article The Balco mastermind, Key Figure in Notorious Sports Performance-Enhancing Drug Controversy, Succumbs at Age 75. Victor Conte, who devised a plan to distribute stealthy banned substances to top competitors featuring baseball greats Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Jones years back, has died. He was 75. Federal Investigation and Convictions The federal government's investigation into another company established by Conte, the Bay Area lab, resulted in the guilty verdicts of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and retired NFL player Dana Stubblefield, along with various support personnel and professionals. Conte's Admissions and Legal Consequences Conte, who served a third of a year in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, discussed frankly about his famous former clients. He appeared on TV to claim he had seen decorated Olympian Jones inject herself with growth hormones, but always refrained from implicating Bonds, the baseball star. The Mitchell Report The federal case inspired the book titled Game of Shadows. Just days following the publication date in the mid-2000s, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig hired ex-senator Mitchell to examine doping in baseball. Conte stated he provided steroids referred to as certain undetectable drugs and guided their usage to dozens of professional sportspeople, such as Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the report. Using banned drugs poses a serious threat to the fairness of the sport,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Broad usage by competitors of such substances puts at a disadvantage the clean players who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the legitimacy of baseball records.” Mitchell indicated the problems were not sudden. The report emphasized all parties in professional baseball in the preceding decades – covering commissioners, team executives, the union and players – were partly accountable for what he termed “the steroids era”. How It Began The federal investigation into Balco began with a tax agent examining the corporate garbage. He ultimately admitted guilt to a pair of the numerous counts he faced in that year ahead of a court case. Six of the defendants sentenced were convicted for misleading federal investigators. Related Cases The athlete's coach Anderson, pleaded guilty to drug dealing counts stemming from his Balco connections. He received a sentence to a quarter year in prison and three months of restricted movement. His Court Proceedings The home run king was indicted for deceiving a investigative body about using performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in 2011. The case was dismissed his case after several years when the prosecutors opted not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the federal apex court. A decorated player and star performer, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 campaign with a record home run tally, breaking the mark of that number that Hank Aaron set from the 1950s to 1970s. He claimed he did not knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has failed to gain entry to the Hall of Fame. Later Years He stated in an interview in a 2010 interview that “sportspeople break rules to win, but the government agents and prosecutors engage in misconduct as well.” He wondered whether the results in such proceedings were worth the resources. After serving his sentence, Conte got back in business in that year by resuscitating a health products venture he had founded two decades earlier called his supplements brand. He set up shop in the same building that was home to Balco in Burlingame, California. Unapologetic Views Conte stayed unrepentant about his central role in doling out tailored drugs to top sports stars. He maintained he simply helped “even the competition” in a world already rife with rule-breakers. Expert Opinions To an expert, a former participant of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte was essentially selling hard drugs. “It concerns totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about using drugs in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in the past. “This isn't charity and this is not some do-gooding. It's illegal sales.”