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The man behind the scheme, who devised a plan to distribute hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to elite sports stars including baseball greats Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones in the past, has died. His age was 75.

Official Inquiry and Criminal Cases

A national probe of an additional venture Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), resulted in the guilty verdicts of Jones, competitive biker Tammy Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Dana Stubblefield, along with trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Public Statements and Legal Consequences

Conte, who served several months in a penitentiary for illegal drug sales, talked publicly about his famous former clients. He went on television to state he had observed triple Olympic champion Jones use a syringe with human growth hormones, but never directly implicating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Baseball's Investigation

The federal case led to the volume Game of Shadows. Just days following the book's publication in that year, MLB commissioner Selig hired political figure George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

Conte stated he provided steroids referred to as “the cream” and “the clear” and guided their application to dozens of top performers, like Giambi, a star player, as per the investigation.

Using PEDs is a significant danger to the fairness of the game,” the report stated. “Prevalent consumption by players of these compounds harms the clean players who decline to take them and leads to skepticism about the accuracy of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the issues didn’t develop overnight. He said everyone involved in baseball in the preceding decades – including leaders, management, the union and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he called the doping period.

How It Began

The federal investigation into the company began with a revenue officer digging through the business refuse. Conte eventually confessed to a couple of the 42 charges he faced in that year before a trial. Half a dozen of the 11 convicted people were convicted for misleading the court.

Related Cases

Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to drug dealing counts stemming from his Balco connections. Anderson was sentenced to a quarter year in prison and three months of home confinement.

The Slugger's Case

The baseball legend was accused of deceiving a grand jury about obtaining performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in 2011. The case was dismissed the charges four years later when the authorities chose not to challenge an reversed conviction to the federal apex court.

A seven-time National League MVP and star performer, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 season with a record home run tally, surpassing the record of 755 that Hank Aaron set from 1954-76. Bonds denied intentionally taking performance-enhancing drugs but has failed to gain entry to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

The former convict remarked to the press in a 2010 discussion that “competitors do cheat to win, but the federal representatives engage in misconduct as well.” He wondered whether the outcomes in these trials were worth the resources.

Following his prison term, he got back in business in the late 2000s by resuscitating a nutritional supplements business he had launched two decades earlier called SNAC System. He operated in the identical location that once housed the original company in Burlingame.

Continued Justification

The controversial figure continued to justify about his central role in distributing custom PEDs to professional competitors. He maintained he simply helped “level the playing field” in a arena full of doping athletes.

Critical Perspectives

To an expert, a former participant of the WADA, Conte may as well have been pushing illegal narcotics. “It concerns unlawful substance distribution. It's about using drugs in defiance of legal codes,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and not a benevolent act. It's trafficking.”