🔗 Share this article The Balco mastermind, Central Player in Notorious Sports Performance-Enhancing Drug Controversy, Dies at 75. The orchestrator of the plot, who masterminded a operation to distribute undetectable banned substances to top competitors including baseball greats Giambi and Bonds and sprinting gold medalist Jones in the past, has died. He was 75. Official Inquiry and Convictions A national investigation into an additional venture set up by him, the Bay Area lab, culminated in the convictions of Marion Jones, competitive biker Tammy Thomas, and retired NFL player Dana Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer. Public Statements and Prison Time The Balco founder, who spent several months in a penitentiary for steroid distribution, discussed frankly about his high-profile athletes. He was featured on television to state he had observed three-time Olympic medalist Jones self-administer with human growth hormones, but always refrained from incriminating Bonds, the baseball star. Sport's Official Review The federal case inspired the publication Game of Shadows. Just days following the book's publication in the mid-2000s, MLB commissioner Selig brought on political figure George Mitchell to investigate steroids. Conte stated he provided steroids known as “the cream” and “the clear” and coached on their usage to dozens of professional sportspeople, including Giambi, a multiple-time All-Star, the Mitchell report said. Employing banned drugs represents a major risk to the integrity of the game,” the Mitchell report concluded. “Prevalent consumption by athletes of such substances unfairly disadvantages the those who refuse to cheat who decline to take them and raises questions about the legitimacy of sporting achievements.” The report noted the issues were not sudden. Mitchell claimed everyone involved in the sport in the previous twenty years – covering commissioners, team executives, the representative body and players – were partly accountable for what he termed “the steroids era”. Investigation Origins The government's case into the laboratory started when a tax agent digging through the company’s trash. Conte eventually confessed to a pair of the 42 charges against him in that year ahead of a court case. Six of the 11 convicted people were convicted for misleading federal investigators. Related Cases Bonds’ personal trainer Anderson, admitted guilt to illegal substance sales arising from his involvement with Balco. Anderson was sentenced to 90 days in jail and the same duration of home confinement. The Slugger's Case Bonds was indicted for providing false statements to a investigative body about using PEDs and went on trial in that year. The government abandoned the charges four years later when the prosecutors opted not to appeal an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the federal apex court. A seven-time National League MVP and star performer, he retired after the that season with 762 homers, breaking the mark of that number that Hank Aaron set from 1954-76. Bonds denied consciously consuming performance-enhancing drugs but has never been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. After Incarceration He stated in an interview in a 2010 interview that “sportspeople break rules to triumph, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the conclusions in such proceedings were worth the resources. Post-incarceration, he got back in business in the late 2000s by rebooting a supplements company he had started years before called his supplements brand. He set up shop in the identical location that previously contained his former lab in the California city. Unapologetic Views Conte continued to justify about his major involvement in providing designer steroids to professional competitors. He claimed he simply helped “balance the odds” in a world teeming with rule-breakers. Outside Views To a WADA member, a at the time a member of the WADA, Conte could be compared to selling illegal narcotics. “It concerns blatant drug dealing. This refers to using drugs in defiance of legal codes,” Wadler said in the past. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”