🔗 Share this article The steroids scandal architect, Central Player in Notorious Sports Performance-Enhancing Drug Controversy, Succumbs at Age 75. The man behind the scheme, who devised a operation to distribute hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to top competitors such as baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Marion Jones decades ago, is deceased. He was 75. Federal Investigation and Convictions The federal government's probe of another company set up by him, the Bay Area lab, led to the convictions of Jones, competitive biker Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer. Conte's Admissions and Prison Time The Balco founder, who served four months in a federal facility for dealing steroids, discussed frankly about his famous former clients. He appeared on TV to claim he had witnessed decorated Olympian Marion Jones self-administer with HGH, but never directly incriminating Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger. Baseball's Investigation The federal case led to the book Game of Shadows. Just days following the book's publication in that year, MLB commissioner Selig hired former senate majority leader George Mitchell to investigate steroids. Conte stated he sold steroids known as certain undetectable drugs and guided their use to many elite athletes, like Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the report. “The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances is a significant danger to the honesty of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by players of these drugs unfairly disadvantages the those who refuse to cheat who avoid them and leads to skepticism about the legitimacy of sporting achievements.” Mitchell indicated the challenges took time to emerge. The report emphasized each participant in the sport in the preceding decades – encompassing commissioners, team executives, the representative body and players – shared some responsibility for what he termed the PED epoch. Investigation Origins The government's case into Balco was initiated by a tax agent digging through the corporate garbage. He eventually confessed to two of the numerous counts he faced in 2005 ahead of a court case. Six of the 11 convicted people were convicted for deceiving the court. Further Legal Actions The athlete's coach Anderson, admitted guilt to drug dealing counts stemming from his Balco connections. He received a sentence to 90 days in jail and three months of home confinement. Bonds' Legal Battles The baseball legend was charged with lying to a grand jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in 2011. The government abandoned the case four years later when the government decided not to challenge an reversed conviction to the highest court. A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he retired after the 2007 season with 762 homers, surpassing the mark of that number that Hank Aaron achieved from his career. The athlete refuted consciously consuming banned substances but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame. Later Years He told the Associated Press in a past conversation that “competitors do cheat to triumph, but the government agents and prosecutors engage in misconduct as well.” He doubted whether the conclusions in such legal cases were worth the resources. Following his prison term, he returned to work in the late 2000s by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had launched two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He located it in the very same place that once housed his former lab in Burlingame, California. Unapologetic Views He continued to justify about his major involvement in doling out custom PEDs to professional competitors. He argued he simply helped “level the playing field” in a world teeming with cheaters. Expert Opinions To Dr Gary Wadler, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, Conte could be compared to pushing illegal narcotics. “It concerns totally illegal drug trafficking. This refers to substance use in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “It's not a good deed and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”