The man behind the scheme, who masterminded a system to distribute undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to top competitors such as MLB legends Giambi and Bonds and track and field star Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.
An official inquiry regarding another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), resulted in the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and ex-pro football defender Stubblefield, as well as various support personnel and professionals.
He, who served four months in a federal facility for illegal drug sales, spoke openly about his high-profile athletes. He appeared on television to assert he had witnessed triple Olympic champion Jones self-administer with HGH, but consistently avoided incriminating Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.
This probe led to the publication titled Game of Shadows. A week after the book's publication in that year, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig brought on ex-senator Mitchell to look into PED use.
Conte stated he distributed steroids referred to as “the cream” and “the clear” and advised on their application to dozens of top performers, such as Jason Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, the Mitchell report said.
Using performance-enhancing substances is a significant danger to the honesty of the sport,” the findings emphasized. “Broad usage by competitors of such substances harms the those who refuse to cheat who decline to take them and creates doubts about the accuracy of baseball records.”
Mitchell indicated the problems didn’t develop overnight. Mitchell claimed everyone involved in the sport in the preceding decades – covering leaders, management, the union and athletes themselves – shared some responsibility for what he termed the doping period.
The official probe into Balco started when a tax agent examining the corporate garbage. He eventually confessed to a pair of the 42 charges against him in the mid-2000s before a trial. Several of the defendants sentenced were convicted for lying to grand jurors.
Bonds’ personal trainer Greg Anderson, admitted guilt to drug dealing counts stemming from his ties to the lab. The court gave him to a quarter year in incarceration and the same duration of house arrest.
The baseball legend was indicted for deceiving a investigative body about receiving banned substances and faced a trial in 2011. The government abandoned the case after several years when the authorities chose not to appeal an overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the highest court.
A decorated player and frequent All-Star, Bonds ended his career after the 2007 campaign with a record home run tally, breaking the milestone of Aaron's total that Hank Aaron set from the 1950s to 1970s. He claimed he did not knowingly using PEDs but has not been voted to the sport's hall of honor.
Conte remarked to the press in a 2010 interview that “competitors do cheat to triumph, but the officials and lawyers cheat to win, too.” He wondered whether the outcomes in these trials justified the effort.
Post-incarceration, Conte resumed operations in the late 2000s by reviving a supplements company he had started previously called SNAC System. He set up shop in the very same place that was home to the original company in Burlingame, California.
Conte stayed unrepentant about his major involvement in doling out designer steroids to elite athletes. He argued he simply helped “even the competition” in a world teeming with rule-breakers.
To Dr Gary Wadler, a former participant of the WADA, Conte could be compared to selling hard drugs. “This involves totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about substance use in defiance of legal codes,” the doctor remarked in that period. “This is not philanthropy and it's not altruistic. This is drug dealing.”
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