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The orchestrator of the plot, who devised a system to provide stealthy PEDs to professional athletes featuring baseball icons Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and sprinting gold medalist Jones years back, has died. His age was 75.

Government Probe and Legal Outcomes

A national investigation into a separate firm set up by him, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), resulted in the criminal findings of Marion Jones, top track cyclist Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Dana Stubblefield, in addition to coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Open Discussions and Sentencing

He, who spent a third of a year in federal prison for illegal drug sales, talked publicly about his high-profile athletes. He went on broadcast media to state he had observed triple Olympic champion Jones self-administer with HGH, but always refrained from incriminating Bonds, the Giants power hitter.

The Mitchell Report

The investigation inspired the book Game of Shadows. A week after the release of the book in that year, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig brought on former senate majority leader Mitchell to investigate steroids.

He admitted he sold steroids known as two specific substances and guided their use to numerous professional sportspeople, like Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the report.

Employing banned drugs represents a major risk to the integrity of the competition,” the report stated. “Prevalent consumption by athletes of these drugs harms the clean players who avoid them and raises questions about the legitimacy of historical stats.”

The report noted the problems didn’t develop overnight. He said everyone involved in professional baseball in the preceding decades – including commissioners, club officials, the players’ association and athletes themselves – bore partial blame for what he called the doping period.

How It Began

The official probe into the laboratory was initiated by a tax agent searching the corporate garbage. He eventually confessed to a pair of the 42 charges filed against him in the mid-2000s ahead of a court case. Six of the defendants sentenced were convicted for misleading the court.

Related Cases

The athlete's coach Greg Anderson, confessed to illegal substance sales arising from his involvement with Balco. The court gave him to three months in jail and an equal period of restricted movement.

The Slugger's Case

The baseball legend was charged with providing false statements to a investigative body about obtaining PEDs and stood trial in that year. Prosecutors dropped the case four years later when the government decided not to appeal an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.

A decorated player and 14-time All-Star outfielder, he retired after the 2007 season with 762 homers, surpassing the record of 755 that Aaron set from his career. Bonds denied consciously consuming banned substances but has never been elected to the Hall of Fame.

After Incarceration

Conte stated in an interview in a past conversation that “yes, athletes cheat to triumph, but the officials and lawyers cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the outcomes in such legal cases were worth the resources.

Post-incarceration, he got back in business in 2007 by rebooting a health products venture he had started two decades earlier called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning or SNAC System. He operated in the very same place that was home to Balco in Burlingame, California.

Continued Justification

The controversial figure remained defiant about his key part in doling out tailored drugs to professional competitors. He maintained he simply helped “even the competition” in a world teeming with cheaters.

Outside Views

To a WADA member, a former participant of the global anti-doping body, Conte could be compared to distributing hard drugs. “This involves totally illegal drug trafficking. This refers to using drugs in defiance of legal codes,” Wadler said in that period. “This isn't charity and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”