🔗 Share this article The steroids scandal architect, Central Player in Infamous Sports Performance-Enhancing Drug Scandal, Dies at 75. The man behind the scheme, who masterminded a system to distribute hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and track and field star Jones in the past, is deceased. He was 75. Official Inquiry and Legal Outcomes The federal government's probe of a separate firm established by Conte, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer. Conte's Admissions and Legal Consequences Conte, who completed a third of a year in a federal facility for steroid distribution, discussed frankly about his well-known clients. He appeared on broadcast media to claim he had observed three-time Olympic medalist Jones use a syringe with HGH, but always refrained from pointing the finger at Bonds, the baseball star. The Mitchell Report The federal case resulted in the publication titled Game of Shadows. Shortly after the release of the book in the mid-2000s, baseball Commissioner Selig hired former senate majority leader George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball. Conte stated he distributed steroids known as certain undetectable drugs and guided their application to many elite athletes, such as Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said. Using banned drugs represents a major risk to the honesty of the competition,” the findings emphasized. “Prevalent consumption by athletes of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who decline to take them and creates doubts about the validity of baseball records.” The report noted the issues took time to emerge. Mitchell claimed all parties in the sport in the previous twenty years – covering leaders, management, the players’ association and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he called the PED epoch. Case Inception The federal investigation into the laboratory was initiated by a tax agent digging through the company’s trash. He eventually confessed to two of the 42 charges he faced in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were convicted for lying to federal investigators. Related Cases His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, confessed to steroid distribution charges arising from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to three months in prison and three months of restricted movement. His Court Proceedings The home run king was indicted for lying to a federal jury about receiving banned substances and stood trial in 2011. Prosecutors dropped his case four years later when the prosecutors opted not to challenge an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the supreme court. A decorated player and frequent All-Star, he retired after the 2007 campaign with 762 homers, surpassing the milestone of that number that Aaron set from 1954-76. He claimed he did not consciously consuming PEDs but has never been elected to the sport's hall of honor. Later Years The former convict told the Associated Press in a past conversation that “competitors do cheat to win, but the officials and lawyers engage in misconduct as well.” He doubted whether the outcomes in such proceedings merited the work. Post-incarceration, he resumed operations in the late 2000s by resuscitating a supplements company he had founded two decades earlier called his supplements brand. He operated in the identical location that once housed Balco in Burlingame. Defiant Stance Conte stayed unrepentant about his central role in doling out designer steroids to elite athletes. He claimed he simply helped “even the competition” in a world already rife with rule-breakers. Outside Views To an expert, a at the time a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte may as well have been selling cocaine or heroin. “You are talking about blatant drug dealing. It's about drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” he stated in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and this is not some do-gooding. It's illegal sales.”