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The man behind the scheme, who engineered a operation to supply hard-to-detect performance-enhancing drugs to elite sports stars including baseball icons Giambi and Bonds and Olympic track champion Marion Jones in the past, has passed away. He reached 75 years.

Federal Investigation and Convictions

A national probe of an additional venture established by Conte, the Bay Area lab, led to the convictions of Marion Jones, competitive biker Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, in addition to trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Public Statements and Sentencing

The Balco founder, who spent a third of a year in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his high-profile athletes. He went on television to assert he had seen three-time Olympic medalist Jones inject herself with human growth hormones, but never directly incriminating Barry Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

This probe resulted in the volume titled Game of Shadows. A week after the publication date in that year, MLB commissioner Bud Selig appointed political figure George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

Conte stated he provided steroids called certain undetectable drugs and guided their application to many professional sportspeople, including Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Employing PEDs poses a serious threat to the integrity of the competition,” the report stated. “Broad usage by players of these compounds unfairly disadvantages the clean players who avoid them and raises questions about the legitimacy of historical stats.”

Mitchell indicated the problems were not sudden. The report emphasized everyone involved in professional baseball in the prior two decades – encompassing leaders, club officials, the union and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he labeled the doping period.

How It Began

The federal investigation into the laboratory started when a IRS investigator searching the business refuse. The defendant eventually confessed to a couple of the numerous counts filed against him in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the 11 convicted people were convicted for lying to grand jurors.

Related Cases

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his involvement with Balco. He received a sentence to a quarter year in jail and the same duration of house arrest.

Bonds' Legal Battles

The home run king was charged with lying to a federal jury about receiving banned substances and went on trial in that year. The government abandoned the charges four years later when the authorities chose not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.

A multiple MVP winner and frequent All-Star, he retired after the 2007 season with 762 home runs, surpassing the milestone of 755 that Hank Aaron established from 1954-76. Bonds denied intentionally taking PEDs but has failed to gain entry to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

The former convict stated in an interview in a 2010 interview that “yes, athletes cheat to win, but the federal representatives cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the outcomes in such legal cases justified the effort.

Post-incarceration, Conte returned to work in 2007 by resuscitating a nutritional supplements business he had launched previously called his supplements brand. He set up shop in the very same place that once housed Balco in Burlingame.

Defiant Stance

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

Expert Opinions

To a WADA member, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, he could be compared to selling illegal narcotics. “This involves blatant drug dealing. This refers to substance use in defiance of legal codes,” he stated in the past. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. It's illegal sales.”