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The man behind the scheme, who engineered a system to distribute hard-to-detect banned substances to elite sports stars featuring MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and track and field star Marion Jones years back, is deceased. He was 75.

Government Probe and Criminal Cases

A national probe of another company established by Conte, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), led to the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Thomas, and retired NFL player Stubblefield, along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Open Discussions and Prison Time

Conte, who spent a third of a year in a penitentiary for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his famous former clients. He was featured on television to assert he had observed three-time Olympic medalist Jones inject herself with human growth hormones, but never directly implicating Barry Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

Baseball's Investigation

The federal case inspired the book Game of Shadows. Shortly after the book's publication in that year, baseball Commissioner Selig brought on political figure George Mitchell to examine doping in baseball.

Conte stated he distributed steroids called “the cream” and “the clear” and coached on their application to dozens of professional sportspeople, including Jason Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said.

Using PEDs is a significant danger to the integrity of the sport,” the report stated. “Prevalent consumption by players of these drugs puts at a disadvantage the clean players who decline to take them and raises questions about the legitimacy of baseball records.”

It was stated the problems were not sudden. The report emphasized all parties in the sport in the previous twenty years – including leaders, team executives, the union and athletes themselves – were partly accountable for what he labeled the doping period.

Case Inception

The federal investigation into the company was initiated by a tax agent examining the company’s trash. Conte eventually confessed to a couple of the 42 charges filed against him in the mid-2000s prior to court proceedings. Several of the individuals found guilty were caught deceiving grand jurors.

Related Cases

The athlete's coach Anderson, confessed to drug dealing counts stemming from his ties to the lab. The court gave him to 90 days in prison and an equal period of home confinement.

His Court Proceedings

Bonds was accused of deceiving a grand jury about using PEDs and faced a trial in that year. The government abandoned the case four years later when the authorities chose not to appeal an reversed conviction to the federal apex court.

A decorated player and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he concluded his playing days after the that season with 762 homers, 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 sport's hall of honor.

Later Years

Conte told the Associated Press in a 2010 discussion that “sportspeople break rules to succeed, but the federal representatives engage in misconduct as well.” He also questioned whether the conclusions in such proceedings merited the work.

Following his prison term, Conte got back in business in 2007 by rebooting a nutritional supplements business he had launched two decades earlier called SNAC System. He set up shop in the same building that once housed his former lab in Burlingame.

Defiant Stance

The controversial figure continued to justify about his major involvement in doling out tailored drugs to professional competitors. He maintained he simply helped “even the competition” in a arena full of cheaters.

Outside Views

To an expert, a former participant of the global anti-doping body, Conte may as well have been selling illegal narcotics. “It concerns blatant drug dealing. It's about substance use in defiance of legal codes,” he stated in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. It's illegal sales.”