🔗 Share this article

Victor Conte, who engineered a operation to provide hard-to-detect banned substances to professional athletes such as baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and sprinting gold medalist Jones years back, has died. His age was 75.

Official Inquiry and Convictions

A national inquiry regarding another company Conte founded, Balco, culminated in the guilty verdicts of Marion Jones, top track cyclist Tammy Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Public Statements and Sentencing

Conte, who spent four months in a penitentiary for illegal drug sales, discussed frankly about his high-profile athletes. He went on television to claim he had witnessed decorated Olympian Marion Jones inject herself with HGH, but always refrained from pointing the finger at Barry Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation led to the volume Game of Shadows. Just days following the book's publication in that year, MLB commissioner Selig brought on ex-senator Mitchell to investigate steroids.

Conte stated he provided steroids referred to as “the cream” and “the clear” and coached on their application to many top performers, including Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Employing banned drugs represents a major risk to the honesty of the competition,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by competitors of these drugs harms the clean players who refuse to use them and creates doubts about the validity of sporting achievements.”

Mitchell indicated the problems were not sudden. Mitchell claimed each participant in baseball in the prior two decades – covering leaders, team executives, the union and players – shared some responsibility for what he labeled the doping period.

Investigation Origins

The official probe into the laboratory was initiated by a IRS investigator digging through the corporate garbage. The defendant eventually confessed to two of the multiple accusations he faced in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Several of the 11 convicted people were convicted for lying to grand jurors.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges arising from his ties to the lab. Anderson was sentenced to three months in jail and an equal period of home confinement.

The Slugger's Case

The baseball legend was charged with lying to a grand jury about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in 2011. Prosecutors dropped the charges four years later when the prosecutors opted not to contest an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A seven-time National League MVP and frequent All-Star, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 season with a record home run tally, exceeding the record of that number that Hank Aaron achieved from the 1950s to 1970s. Bonds denied intentionally taking banned substances but has not been voted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

He remarked to the press in a past conversation that “competitors do cheat to succeed, but the federal representatives engage in misconduct as well.” He doubted whether the conclusions in such legal cases were worth the resources.

After serving his sentence, he got back in business in 2007 by rebooting a supplements company he had started previously called his supplements brand. He located it in the same building that previously contained his former lab in Burlingame, California.

Unapologetic Views

Conte continued to justify about his key part in distributing tailored drugs to professional competitors. He claimed he simply helped “even the competition” in a world already rife with cheaters.

Expert Opinions

To a WADA member, a then-member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he was essentially distributing hard drugs. “It concerns unlawful substance distribution. You are talking about drug consumption in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”