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Victor Conte, who masterminded a plan to distribute hard-to-detect banned substances to professional athletes including MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.

Federal Investigation and Legal Outcomes

A national probe of an additional venture established by Conte, the Bay Area lab, resulted in the guilty verdicts of Marion Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and retired NFL player Dana Stubblefield, in addition to trainers, suppliers, chemists, attorneys, and coaches.

Public Statements and Legal Consequences

He, who served a third of a year in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his well-known clients. He appeared on broadcast media to assert he had witnessed triple Olympic champion Jones use a syringe with HGH, but never directly incriminating Barry Bonds, the baseball star.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation led to the volume Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in 2006, the sport's chief Bud Selig appointed political figure George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

He revealed he distributed steroids known as certain undetectable drugs and guided their usage to dozens of top performers, such as Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the fairness of the competition,” the report stated. “Widespread use by athletes of such substances unfairly disadvantages the clean players who refuse to use them and leads to skepticism about the validity of sporting achievements.”

Mitchell indicated the challenges didn’t develop overnight. The report emphasized all parties in baseball in the prior two decades – including leaders, management, the union and athletes themselves – shared some responsibility for what he labeled the doping period.

Investigation Origins

The government's case into the laboratory was initiated by a tax agent examining the company’s trash. Conte ended up pleading guilty to a couple of the multiple accusations against him in that year ahead of a court case. Half a dozen of the defendants sentenced were convicted for lying to federal investigators.

Further Legal Actions

His fitness instructor Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his ties to the lab. The court gave him to 90 days in incarceration and the same duration of restricted movement.

The Slugger's Case

The home run king was accused of lying to a investigative body about using banned substances and stood trial in that year. The case was dismissed the case after several years when the government decided not to appeal an reversed conviction to the highest court.

A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds retired after the 2007 campaign with 762 homers, exceeding the mark of 755 that Aaron established from his career. The athlete refuted consciously consuming performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Later Years

Conte stated in an interview in a 2010 interview that “competitors do cheat to succeed, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the outcomes in such proceedings were worth the resources.

Post-incarceration, he returned to work in that year by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had started two decades earlier called his supplements brand. He set up shop in the very same place that was home to Balco in Burlingame.

Defiant Stance

He continued to justify about his major involvement in doling out tailored drugs to professional competitors. He argued he simply helped “even the competition” in a world full of doping athletes.

Expert Opinions

To an expert, a then-member of the global anti-doping body, Conte was essentially distributing hard drugs. “You are talking about unlawful substance distribution. You are talking about drug consumption in breach of national statutes,” Wadler said in the past. “It's not a good deed and it's not altruistic. It's illegal sales.”