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Victor Conte, who devised a operation to provide hard-to-detect PEDs to professional athletes featuring baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Marion Jones years back, has died. His age was 75.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

The federal government's probe of an additional venture set up by him, Balco, led to the guilty verdicts of Jones, competitive biker Thomas, and retired NFL player Dana Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Public Statements and Prison Time

He, who spent a third of a year in federal prison for dealing steroids, talked publicly about his well-known clients. He went on television to state he had witnessed three-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones use a syringe with HGH, but always refrained from pointing the finger at Bonds, the baseball star.

The Mitchell Report

The federal case inspired the publication Game of Shadows. Shortly after the release of the book in the mid-2000s, baseball Commissioner Selig hired ex-senator George Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He admitted he sold steroids referred to as certain undetectable drugs and guided their application to numerous top performers, such as Jason Giambi, a star player, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of banned drugs represents a major risk to the integrity of the sport,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Broad usage by players of these drugs puts at a disadvantage the those who refuse to cheat who refuse to use them and raises questions about the legitimacy of baseball records.”

The report noted the issues didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell claimed all parties in the sport in the previous twenty years – encompassing leaders, club officials, the union and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he labeled “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The government's case into Balco began with a tax agent searching the business refuse. He ultimately admitted guilt to a pair of the 42 charges filed against him in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the 11 convicted people were caught misleading federal investigators.

Associated Convictions

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to illegal substance sales stemming from his Balco connections. Anderson was sentenced to three months in prison and the same duration of house arrest.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The baseball legend was accused of providing false statements to a grand jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and faced a trial in the early 2010s. Prosecutors dropped the charges four years later when the government decided not to challenge an reversed conviction to the federal apex court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with a record home run tally, exceeding the mark of Aaron's total that Hank Aaron achieved from 1954-76. Bonds denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has not been voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

Conte told the Associated Press in a 2010 interview that “yes, athletes cheat to triumph, but the officials and lawyers engage in misconduct as well.” He also questioned whether the results in these trials justified the effort.

Post-incarceration, he got back in business in that year by resuscitating a supplements company he had founded two decades earlier called SNAC System. He located it in the very same place that was home to his former lab in Burlingame.

Unapologetic Views

Conte continued to justify about his central role in distributing tailored drugs to elite athletes. He argued he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world teeming with doping athletes.

Outside Views

To an expert, a former participant of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he was essentially distributing hard drugs. “It concerns totally illegal drug trafficking. This refers to substance use in breach of national statutes,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. It's trafficking.”