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The man behind the scheme, who devised a system to supply hard-to-detect PEDs to professional athletes including baseball greats Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones in the past, has passed away. He was 75.

Official Inquiry and Convictions

The federal government's inquiry regarding an additional venture set up by him, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), culminated in the guilty verdicts of Marion Jones, top track cyclist Tammy Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, along with various support personnel and professionals.

Open Discussions and Legal Consequences

The Balco founder, who completed several months in federal prison for dealing steroids, spoke openly about his high-profile athletes. He went on broadcast media to state he had observed triple Olympic champion Marion Jones self-administer with HGH, but never directly implicating Barry Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation led to the publication titled Game of Shadows. A week after the book's publication in that year, MLB commissioner Selig hired political figure Mitchell to look into PED use.

He revealed he sold steroids referred to as certain undetectable drugs and guided their use to many elite athletes, such as Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Using performance-enhancing substances represents a major risk to the integrity of the competition,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Prevalent consumption by competitors of such substances harms the honest athletes who avoid them and leads to skepticism about the accuracy of sporting achievements.”

The report noted the issues took time to emerge. The report emphasized all parties in professional baseball in the preceding decades – covering leaders, team executives, the players’ association and players – shared some responsibility for what he termed the doping period.

How It Began

The official probe into the company was initiated by a tax agent digging through the corporate garbage. The defendant ended up pleading guilty to two of the numerous counts filed against him in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Several of the individuals found guilty were convicted for deceiving federal investigators.

Related Cases

The athlete's coach Greg Anderson, confessed to drug dealing counts linked to his ties to the lab. He received a sentence to a quarter year in prison and an equal period of house arrest.

Bonds' Legal Battles

Bonds was accused of lying to a investigative body about obtaining PEDs and stood trial in that year. The government abandoned his case four years later when the authorities chose not to challenge an overturned ruling to the federal apex court.

A decorated player and star performer, Bonds retired after the 2007 campaign with 762 home runs, exceeding the milestone of that number that Aaron established from 1954-76. Bonds denied knowingly using performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

Conte stated in an interview in a past conversation that “competitors do cheat to succeed, but the government agents and prosecutors engage in misconduct as well.” He doubted whether the outcomes in such proceedings 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 started years before called SNAC System. He operated in the very same place that was home to the original company in the California city.

Defiant Stance

Conte stayed unrepentant about his central role in providing custom PEDs to elite athletes. He claimed he simply helped “level the playing field” in a sports environment full of rule-breakers.

Expert Opinions

To a WADA member, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, Conte may as well have been distributing hard drugs. “You are talking about unlawful substance distribution. It's about drug consumption in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “It's not a good deed and not a benevolent act. It's trafficking.”