🔗 Share this article

The man behind the scheme, who masterminded a plan to provide hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes featuring baseball icons Giambi and Bonds and Olympic track champion Jones decades ago, has passed away. He reached 75 years.

Government Probe and Legal Outcomes

A national probe of another company Conte founded, the Bay Area lab, led to the guilty verdicts of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Dana Stubblefield, as well as various support personnel and professionals.

Conte's Admissions and Sentencing

Conte, who served four months in a federal facility for dealing steroids, discussed frankly about his high-profile athletes. He appeared on TV to state he had observed decorated Olympian Jones inject herself with human growth hormones, but never directly implicating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Baseball's Investigation

The investigation resulted in the publication Game of Shadows. Shortly after the publication date in 2006, baseball Commissioner Selig hired political figure George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

He admitted he provided steroids called certain undetectable drugs and advised on their usage to many top performers, including Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of PEDs represents a major risk to the honesty of the game,” the report stated. “Widespread use by competitors of these drugs unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who avoid them and creates doubts about the validity of historical stats.”

The report noted the challenges took time to emerge. Mitchell claimed everyone involved in the sport in the preceding decades – covering leaders, club officials, the union and athletes themselves – were partly accountable for what he called the doping period.

How It Began

The government's case into Balco was initiated by a revenue officer searching the corporate garbage. The defendant eventually confessed to a pair of the 42 charges he faced in 2005 before a trial. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were ensnared for deceiving grand jurors.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Anderson, admitted guilt to drug dealing counts linked to his ties to the lab. The court gave him to 90 days in prison and three months of house arrest.

The Slugger's Case

The home run king was indicted for lying to a federal jury about receiving PEDs and stood trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped the case four years later when the government decided not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the supreme court.

A multiple MVP winner and star performer, Bonds concluded his playing days after the 2007 campaign with 762 home runs, breaking the record of 755 that Aaron achieved from his career. He claimed he did not consciously consuming banned substances but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

Conte's Post-Prison Life

Conte told the Associated Press in a past conversation that “yes, athletes cheat to triumph, but the federal representatives cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the results in such proceedings justified the effort.

After serving his sentence, Conte returned to work in the late 2000s by reviving a health products venture he had founded two decades earlier called SNAC System. He operated in the very same place that previously contained Balco in Burlingame, California.

Defiant Stance

The controversial figure remained defiant about his key part in distributing designer steroids to elite athletes. He claimed he simply helped “balance the odds” in a world teeming with rule-breakers.

Outside Views

To an expert, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, Conte could be compared to distributing illegal narcotics. “It concerns totally illegal drug trafficking. This refers to drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” Wadler said in the past. “It's not a good deed and not a benevolent act. It's illegal sales.”