🔗 Share this article

Victor Conte, who engineered a plan to distribute undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to top competitors featuring baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and sprinting gold medalist Jones decades ago, has passed away. He reached 75 years.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national inquiry regarding a separate firm set up by him, the Bay Area lab, culminated in the criminal findings of Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, as well as trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Public Statements and Legal Consequences

The Balco founder, who served four months in a penitentiary for dealing steroids, talked publicly about his famous former clients. He was featured on television to claim he had seen decorated Olympian Marion Jones use a syringe with growth hormones, but always refrained from implicating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Sport's Official Review

The investigation resulted in the book titled Game of Shadows. Just days following the release of the book in the mid-2000s, the sport's chief Selig hired ex-senator George Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he provided steroids called “the cream” and “the clear” and advised on their application to numerous top performers, like Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, according to the report.

“The illegal use of PEDs poses a serious threat to the honesty of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by athletes of these drugs puts at a disadvantage the those who refuse to cheat who avoid them and raises questions about the accuracy of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the problems were not sudden. He said everyone involved in the sport in the previous twenty years – including leaders, management, the players’ association and athletes themselves – shared some responsibility for what he termed “the steroids era”.

How It Began

The federal investigation into the company started when a tax agent searching the company’s trash. He ended up pleading guilty to a pair of the 42 charges he faced in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Several of the defendants sentenced were caught misleading federal investigators.

Further Legal Actions

The athlete's coach Anderson, confessed to illegal substance sales stemming from his ties to the lab. He received a sentence to three months in prison and the same duration of restricted movement.

His Court Proceedings

Bonds was accused of deceiving a federal jury about receiving PEDs and faced a trial in the early 2010s. Prosecutors dropped the case four years later when the government decided not to contest an overturned ruling to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and star performer, he concluded his playing days after the 2007 season with 762 homers, exceeding the mark of Aaron's total that Aaron set from his career. The athlete refuted knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has not been voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

Conte remarked to the press in a 2010 interview that “sportspeople break rules to triumph, but the federal representatives also bend the rules.” He also questioned whether the outcomes in such legal cases were worth the resources.

Following his prison term, he got back in business in that year by rebooting a health products venture he had started years before called SNAC System. He operated in the same building that previously contained the original company in Burlingame.

Unapologetic Views

He continued to justify about his major involvement in distributing designer steroids to top sports stars. He claimed he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world teeming with rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To an expert, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he was essentially selling cocaine or heroin. “You are talking about unlawful substance distribution. It's about drug consumption in defiance of legal codes,” the doctor remarked in the past. “This isn't charity and not a benevolent act. It's trafficking.”