The Balco mastermind, Central Player in Infamous Sports Performance-Enhancing Drug Controversy, Dies at 75.
Victor Conte, who engineered a system to supply stealthy banned substances to elite sports stars including MLB legends Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Jones in the past, has passed away. He was 75.
Federal Investigation and Criminal Cases
An official inquiry regarding a separate firm Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.
Public Statements and Prison Time
The Balco founder, who completed four months in a penitentiary for steroid distribution, talked publicly about his famous former clients. He was featured on broadcast media to assert he had witnessed three-time Olympic medalist Marion Jones self-administer with HGH, but never directly implicating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.
The Mitchell Report
The investigation resulted in the volume titled Game of Shadows. A week after the publication date in the mid-2000s, MLB commissioner Selig brought on ex-senator Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.
He admitted he distributed steroids referred to as certain undetectable drugs and advised on their use to many professional sportspeople, like Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, according to the report.
“The illegal use of PEDs represents a major risk to the fairness of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Widespread use by athletes of these drugs harms the those who refuse to cheat who decline to take them and creates doubts about the accuracy of historical stats.”
The report noted the problems didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell claimed all parties in baseball in the preceding decades – including commissioners, club officials, the players’ association and players – were partly accountable for what he called the PED epoch.
Investigation Origins
The official probe into the company was initiated by a tax agent examining the company’s trash. Conte ultimately admitted guilt to a pair of the numerous counts he faced in 2005 prior to court proceedings. Half a dozen of the individuals found guilty were ensnared for deceiving grand jurors.
Further Legal Actions
Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to illegal substance sales stemming from his Balco connections. Anderson was sentenced to 90 days in jail and an equal period of home confinement.
Bonds' Legal Battles
The baseball legend was accused of lying to a grand jury about using PEDs and stood trial in the early 2010s. The case was dismissed the case after several years when the authorities chose not to contest an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the supreme court.
A multiple MVP winner and star performer, Bonds concluded his playing days after the 2007 season with 762 homers, surpassing the milestone of that number that Hank Aaron established from the 1950s to 1970s. Bonds denied consciously consuming performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.
After Incarceration
Conte stated in an interview in a past conversation that “competitors do cheat to win, but the government agents and prosecutors engage in misconduct as well.” He doubted whether the outcomes in such legal cases merited the work.
Following his prison term, Conte resumed operations in that year by resuscitating a supplements company he had started two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He set up shop in the same building that previously contained the original company in Burlingame, California.
Continued Justification
He stayed unrepentant about his key part in distributing tailored drugs to professional competitors. He maintained he simply helped “balance the odds” in a sports environment teeming with doping athletes.
Critical Perspectives
To a WADA member, a former participant of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he may as well have been selling illegal narcotics. “This involves totally illegal drug trafficking. This refers to using drugs in defiance of legal codes,” the doctor remarked in that period. “This is not philanthropy and this is not some do-gooding. It's trafficking.”