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The orchestrator of the plot, who engineered a operation to distribute stealthy PEDs to elite sports stars featuring MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and sprinting gold medalist Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Criminal Cases

An official investigation into an additional venture Conte founded, Balco, led to the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte's Admissions and Sentencing

Conte, who spent several months in a federal facility for steroid distribution, spoke openly about his famous former clients. He was featured on television to assert he had seen triple Olympic champion Marion Jones inject herself with growth hormones, but consistently avoided implicating Bonds, the baseball star.

Baseball's Investigation

The federal case led to the publication titled Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in that year, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig appointed former senate majority leader George Mitchell to look into PED use.

Conte stated he provided steroids referred to as two specific substances and coached on their usage to numerous top performers, such as Jason Giambi, a star player, the Mitchell report said.

Using PEDs represents a major risk to the fairness of the game,” the report stated. “Broad usage by athletes of these drugs harms the clean players who avoid them and creates doubts about the accuracy of baseball records.”

The report noted the issues were not sudden. He said everyone involved in baseball in the prior two decades – encompassing leaders, management, the representative body and athletes themselves – were partly accountable for what he termed the doping period.

How It Began

The federal investigation into Balco was initiated by a IRS investigator digging through the business refuse. He eventually confessed to a couple of the multiple accusations filed against him in the mid-2000s before a trial. Half a dozen of the 11 convicted people were convicted for misleading federal investigators.

Further Legal Actions

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, confessed to drug dealing counts linked to his involvement with Balco. He received a sentence to three months in jail and an equal period of restricted movement.

The Slugger's Case

Bonds was indicted for lying to a federal jury about using PEDs and faced a trial in that year. The government abandoned the charges four years later when the prosecutors opted not to challenge an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 season with 762 homers, surpassing the mark of that number that Aaron achieved from 1954-76. The athlete refuted consciously consuming performance-enhancing drugs but has not been voted to the sport's hall of honor.

Later Years

He remarked to the press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to triumph, but the government agents and prosecutors also bend the rules.” He wondered whether the conclusions in such proceedings justified the effort.

After serving his sentence, he got back in business in that year by resuscitating a supplements company he had founded years before called his supplements brand. He operated in the same building that previously contained his former lab in the California city.

Unapologetic Views

Conte continued to justify about his key part in providing designer steroids to top sports stars. He maintained he simply helped “even the competition” in a sports environment full of doping athletes.

Critical Perspectives

To a WADA member, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, Conte could be compared to distributing illegal narcotics. “It concerns unlawful substance distribution. This refers to drug consumption in defiance of legal codes,” he stated in 2007. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. It's trafficking.”