Victor Conte, who sold undetectable steroids, dies at 75

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Victor Conte, the mastermind behind a scheme to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track and field champion Marion Jones, died decades ago. He was 75.

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Conte died on Monday, SNAC System, the sports nutrition company he founded, said on social media. He did not disclose the cause of his death.

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A federal government investigation into another company founded by Conte, Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, led to the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield, as well as trainers, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer.

Conte, who served four months in federal prison for trafficking steroids, has spoken openly about his famous former clients. He went on television to say he saw three-time Olympic medalist Jones inject herself with growth hormone, but always refrained from blaming Bonds, the San Francisco Giants slugger.

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The result of the investigation was the book “Game of Shadows.” A week after the book was published in 2006, baseball commissioner Bud Selig hired former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell to research steroids.

Steroid era

Conte said he sold steroids known as “cream” and “clear” and advised dozens of elite athletes on their use, including Giambi, a five-time major league All-Star, Mitchell's report said.

“The illegal use of performance-enhancing substances poses a serious threat to the integrity of the game,” Mitchell’s report said. “The widespread use of such substances by players unfairly disadvantages honest athletes who refuse to use them and raises questions about the integrity of baseball records.”

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Mitchell said the problems didn't happen overnight. Mitchell said everyone involved in baseball in the previous two decades, including commissioners, club officials, players' associations and the players themselves, shared some responsibility for what he called the “steroid era.”

The federal investigation into BALCO began with a tax agent digging through the company's trash.

Conte pleaded guilty before trial in 2005 to two of the 42 charges against him. Six of the 11 convicted were caught lying to jurors, federal investigators or the court.

Bonds' personal trainer Greg Anderson pleaded guilty to steroid distribution charges stemming from his ties to BALCO. Anderson was sentenced to three months in prison and three months home confinement.

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Bonds was charged with lying to a grand jury about taking performance-enhancing drugs and stood trial in 2011. Prosecutors dropped the case four years later when the government decided not to appeal the overturned obstruction of justice conviction to the Supreme Court.

A seven-time National League MVP and 14-time All-Star outfielder, Bonds finished his career after the 2007 season with 762 hits, surpassing Hank Aaron's record of 755 set during the 1954–76 season. Bonds denied knowingly doping but was never elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Bonds did not respond to an email seeking comment.

In an interview with The Associated Press in 2010, Conte said that “yes, athletes cheat to win, but government agents and prosecutors cheat to win, too.” He also questioned whether the results of such court cases were worth the effort.

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Conte's attorney, Robert Holley, did not respond to an email and phone call seeking comment. SNAC System did not respond to a message sent through the company's website.

Defiant about his role

After serving time in a maximum-security prison that he described as “like a man's retreat,” Conte returned to business in 2007, reviving a nutritional supplement business he started two decades ago called Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, or SNAC System. He located it in the same building that once housed BALCO in Burlingame, California.

Conte remained defiant about his central role in doling out designer steroids to elite athletes. He claimed he was simply helping to “level the playing field” in a world already rife with scammers.

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To Dr. Gary Wadler, then a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, Conte might as well have been selling cocaine or heroin.

“You're talking about completely illegal drug trafficking. You're talking about drug use in violation of federal law,” Wadler said in 2007. “This is not philanthropy or charity. This is drug trafficking.”

The hallway at the SNAC System was lined with game jerseys of professional athletes and autographed photos, including of track stars Tim Montgomery, Kelly White and C.J. Hunter, who were punished for doping.

Conte wore a Rolex and parked a Bentley and a Mercedes in front of his house. He told the AP in 2007 that he would not speed.

“I’m a person who doesn’t break laws anymore,” he said. “But I still like to look fast.”

Years later, he met with then-World Anti-Doping Agency Chairman Dick Pound.

“As someone who has been able to evade their system for so long, it was easy for me to point out the many loopholes that exist and recommend concrete steps to improve the overall effectiveness of their program,” Conte said in a statement after the meeting.

He said some of the bad decisions he made in the past made him uniquely qualified to contribute to the fight against doping.

The SNAC System social media post announcing Conte's death described him as an “anti-doping advocate.”

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