Victor Conte, the architect of a scheme decades ago to provide unproven performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones, has died. He was 75 years old.
Conte died on Monday, SNAC Systems, the sports nutrition company he founded, said in a social media post. The cause of his death was not disclosed.
The federal government’s investigation of another company founded by Conte, Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), indicted Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield, as well as coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and an attorney.
Conte, who is serving a four-month sentence in federal prison for dealing steroids, spoke candidly about his famous former clients. He said on television that he had seen Jones, a three-time Olympic medalist, injecting himself with human growth hormone, but he always avoided blaming Bonds. san francisco giants Slugger.
The investigation led to the book “Game of Shadows”. A week after the book was published in 2006, baseball commissioner Bud Selig appointed former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to investigate steroids.
Mitchell’s report said Conte said he sold steroids known as “Cream” and “Clear” and advised their use to dozens of elite athletes, including five-time major league All-Star Giambi.
“The illegal use of performance enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the integrity of sport,” Mitchell’s report said. “The widespread use of such substances by players unfairly harms honest athletes who deny using them and calls into question the validity of baseball records.”
Mitchell said the problems did not develop overnight. Mitchell said that everyone involved with baseball over the past two decades – including the commissioner, club executives, the players union and players – shared some responsibility for the “steroid era”.
The federal investigation of BALCO began with a tax agent examining the company’s waste.
Conte pleaded guilty to two of the 42 charges against him in 2005 before trial. Six of the 11 indicted were indicted on charges of lying to grand jurors, federal investigators or the court.
Bonds’ personal trainer, Greg Anderson, pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his BALCO connection. Anderson was sentenced to three months in prison and three months of home confinement.
Bonds was accused of lying to a grand jury about receiving performance-enhancing drugs and went on trial in 2011. Prosecutors dropped the case after four years when the government decided not to appeal the conviction for obstruction of justice to the Supreme Court.
A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds ended his career with 762 homers after the 2007 season, surpassing the record of 755 set by Hank Aaron from 1954 to 1976. Bonds denied knowingly using performance enhancing drugs, but was never elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bonds did not respond to an email seeking comment, nor did Conte’s attorney, Robert Holley. SNAC Systems did not respond to a message sent through the company’s website.
Conte told the Associated Press in a 2010 interview that “Yes, athletes cheat to win, but government agents and prosecutors also cheat to win.” He also questioned whether the results in such legal cases justified the effort.
After serving his sentence in a minimum-security prison, which he described as “kind of the return of men”, Conte returned to business in 2007 by reviving the nutritional supplement business he had launched two decades earlier under the name Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, or SNAC Systems. They located it in the same building that once housed BALCO in Burlingame, California.
Conte remained defiant about his central role in providing designer steroids to elite athletes. He said they helped “level the playing field” in a world already full of cheaters.
The hallways of the SNAC system were filled with game jerseys and signed photographs of pro athletes, including athletics stars Tim Montgomery, Kelly White and CJ Hunter, who were punished for doping.
Conte wore a Rolex and had a Bentley and a Mercedes parked in front of his building. He told the AP in 2007 that he would not drive more than the posted speed limit.
“I’m a person who doesn’t break the law anymore,” he said. “But I still like to look sharp.”
Years later, he met Dick Pound, then president of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“As someone who was able to survive his system for so long, it was easy for me to point out the many flaws that existed and to recommend specific steps to improve the overall effectiveness of his program,” Conte said in a statement after the meeting.
He said that some of the poor decisions he has made in the past make him uniquely qualified to contribute to the anti-doping effort.
The SNAC system’s social media post announcing Conte’s death called him an “anti-doping advocate”.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
