Victor Conte, the architect of a scheme to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.
TL;DR
- Victor Conte, founder of BALCO and figure in the 1990s steroid scandal, has died at 75.
- Conte provided undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to athletes like Barry Bonds and Marion Jones.
- His scheme led to convictions for athletes and associates, and a federal investigation into BALCO.
- After prison, Conte founded SNAC System and became an "Anti-Doping Advocate."
Conte died Monday, SNAC System, a sports nutrition company he founded, said in a social media post. It did not disclose his cause of death.
The federal government’s investigation into another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, yielded 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.
Conte, having served four months in federal prison for steroid distribution, spoke candidly about his well-known past clients. He appeared on television to state he witnessed three-time Olympic medalist Jones administer human growth hormone to herself, yet he consistently refrained from Implicating Bonds, the San Francisco Giants' powerful hitter.
Following the inquiry, the book “Game of Shadows.” Was produced. Just seven days after its 2006 release, baseball's Commissioner Bud Selig enlisted George Mitchell, a former Senate Majority Leader, to look into the use of steroids.
The Steroids Era
Conte stated he supplied steroids identified as “the cream” and “the clear”, along with guidance on their application, to numerous top-tier athletes, including Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, according to the Mitchell report.
“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the integrity of the game,” the Mitchell report said. “Widespread use by players of such substances unfairly disadvantages the honest athletes who refuse to use them and raises questions about the validity of baseball records.”
Mitchell stated that the issues weren't a sudden occurrence. He indicated that all parties connected to baseball over the preceding twenty years—encompassing commissioners, club executives, the players' union, and the athletes themselves—bore a degree of accountability for what he characterized as “the Steroids Era.”
A federal inquiry into BALCO commenced when a tax agent examined the company's refuse.
In 2005, before his trial commenced, Conte entered a guilty plea for two out of the 42 accusations leveled against him. Of the eleven individuals found guilty, six were apprehended for providing false statements to grand jurors, federal investigators, or the court.
Greg Anderson, Bonds' personal trainer, admitted guilt to charges of steroid distribution that originated from his ties to BALCO. Anderson received a sentence of three months in prison and an additional three months of home confinement.
Bonds faced charges of misleading a grand jury regarding his use of performance-enhancing drugs, leading to a trial in 2011. The prosecution dismissed the charges six years later after the government opted not to pursue an appeal to the Supreme Court concerning a reversed obstruction of justice conviction.
Having earned seven National League MVP awards and been selected to 14 All-Star games as an outfielder, Bonds concluded his career his career following the 2007 season with 762 home runs, breaking Hank Aaron's previous record of 755, which he set between 1954 and 1976. Bonds maintained he never intentionally used performance-enhancing substances but has never been elected induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bonds didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.
In a 2010 interview with The Associated Press, Conte stated that “yes, athletes cheat to win, but the government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He also raised doubts about whether the outcomes in those legal matters warranted the exertion.
Robert Holley, Conte's lawyer, did not reply to an email and phone call requesting remarks. SNAC System did not respond to a message submitted via the firm's website.
Defiant about his role
Following his release from a minimum-security correctional facility, which he characterized as “like a men’s retreat,”, Conte re-entered the business world in 2007. He revived a nutritional supplement company he had established twenty years prior, known as Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, or SNAC System. The company was situated in the same facility that previously housed BALCO in Burlingame, California.
Conte stood firm regarding his significant involvement in distributing performance-enhancing drugs to top athletes. He asserted that he merely assisted “level the playing field” in an environment already saturated with dishonest competitors.
To Dr. Gary Wadler, who was then a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, it seemed as though Conte might as well have been distributing cocaine or heroin.
“You are talking about totally illegal drug trafficking. You are talking about using drugs in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy and this is not some do-gooding. This is drug dealing.”
SNAC System's hallway featured a display of professional athlete jerseys and autographed photos, notably including sports figures Tim Montgomery, Kelli White, and CJ Hunter, all of whom faced penalties for doping violations.
Conte sported a Rolex and left a Bentley and a Mercedes outside his building. He informed the AP in 2007 that he would not exceed the speed limit.
“I’m a person who doesn’t break laws anymore,” he said. “But I still do like to look fast.”
Some years afterward, he had a meeting with The World Anti-Doping Agency's chairman at the time, Dick Pound.
“As someone who was able to evade their system for so long, it was easy for me to point out the many loopholes that exist and recommend specific steps to improve the overall effectiveness of their program,” Conte said in a statement after the meeting.
He stated that certain past poor choices he made have uniquely positioned him to aid in the anti-doping initiative.
SNAC System’s social media post announcing Conte’s death called him an “Anti-Doping Advocate.”
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Associated Press writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report.