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Victor Conte

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Victor Conte Jr.
Born (1950-01-10) January 10, 1950 (age 74)
Fresno, California
Occupation(s)musician, businessman
Known forBay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO)

Victor Conte Jr. (born July 10, 1950)[1] is an American musician and businessman who was the founder and president of Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), which is now defunct. BALCO was a sports nutrition center in California. In the late seventies Conte played bass with funk / R&B group Tower of Power, appearing on the band's 1978 release We Came to Play!.

Conte served time in prison in 2005 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute steroids and to money laundering. He currently operates Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning (SNAC Nutrition).

Early life and music career

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Victor Conte Jr. was born in 1950 in Fresno to Shirley and Victor Conte Sr. He is the oldest of three children in a working-class Italian family.[2] After graduating from McLane High School[3] he attended Fresno City College but dropped out of college in 1969 after being convinced by his cousin, musician Bruce Conte, to join the band Common Ground as its bass player.[2][4] In 1970 he quit playing in Common Ground and joined the band Pure Food and Drug Act.[2]

At the time Conte's nickname was "Walking Fish", due to his unusual way of moving across the stage when he was performing. He left Pure Food and Drug Act some time prior to 1977. He was a member of Tower of Power from 1977 until 1979 playing bass guitar.[2] He also collaborated during that period with pianist Herbie Hancock[5] and violinist Sugarcane Harris.

Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative

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Main articles: BALCO scandal and Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative

In 1984, Conte founded the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO), a sports nutrition center first located in Millbrae, California and later relocated to Burlingame, California. The United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) says he developed the banned steroid tetrahydrogestrinone (THG has the nickname The Clear) with the help of bodybuilding chemist Patrick Arnold. Pursuant to a plea bargain struck with prosecutors, he entered guilty pleas in July 2005 to one count of conspiracy to distribute steroids and a second count of laundering a portion of a check. He was sentenced in October of the same year to four months in the federal Taft Correctional Institution in Taft, California, with four months on house arrest.

In a December 2004 interview with Martin Bashir on ABC's 20/20 program, he admitted to running doping programs which have broken Olympic records. He said, "The whole history of the games is just full of corruption, cover-up, performance-enhancing drug use."[6] In the interview he implicated five-time Olympic gold medalist Marion Jones and her partner Tim Montgomery, Kelli White (who later admitted using performance-enhancing drugs), sprinter Dwain Chambers, NFL linebacker Bill Romanowski, and others.

On December 21, 2006, Yahoo Sports reported that one of Conte's initial defense lawyers, Troy Ellerman, had been targeted by the FBI as a possible source of leaks to the media during the Barry Bonds probe.[7] On February 14, 2007, Ellerman pleaded guilty to leaking grand jury testimony. It was also reported that FBI agents were an additional source of leaks. In May 2007, Conte claimed to be again providing supplements for Dwain Chambers, who left track and field to play in the NFL Europa league for the Hamburg Sea Devils before returning to athletics in 2008. According to Conte, the nutritional supplements provided via his company Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning, are perfectly legal.[8]

On December 13, 2007, Conte appeared on CNN before The Mitchell Report was officially released.[9]

Books

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Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports was published by two San Francisco Chronicle investigative reporters in 2006, relating to the case.[10] There have been controversies about the informant and/or source of the information about the books and related court cases.[10]

In 2008, in the aftermath of the investigation, Conte wrote a book BALCO: The Straight Dope on Barry Bonds, Marion and What We Can Do to Save Sports which was co-written with author Nathan Jendrick.[11] There was defamation litigation about the book's publication by boxer Shane Mosley which delayed the publication date.[12] Mosley dropped the lawsuit, but not before Skyhorse Publishing had been scared away from publishing it. The book is officially unpublished as of 2017, but the unpublished manuscript has been made available.[13][14]

Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning

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In 2011, Conte started a new company, Scientific Nutrition for Advanced Conditioning (SNAC) which is based in San Carlos, California, which in addition to nutritional supplements also offers boxing and sports training.[15][16] One of SNAC's clients is boxer Zab Judah;[17] Conte has previously worked with Andre Berto, Nonito Donaire, and Andre Ward.[18]

References

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  1. ^ Memorandum of Interview – Victor Conte Jr (PDF). Balco Laboratorie, Burlingame: Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division. September 3, 2003.
  2. ^ a b c d Fainaru-Wada, Mark; Williams, Lance (2006). Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports. Penguin. ISBN 110121676X.
  3. ^ Fordyce, Tom (October 23, 2003). "2003 biography by BBC Sport". BBC News. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  4. ^ "Strokeland Superband – Bruce Conte". Strokeland.com. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  5. ^ Fordyce, Tom (October 23, 2003). "Man at the heart of the THG scandal". BBC Sport. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  6. ^ Harris, Paul (December 5, 2004). "How drugs shattered America's Olympic dreams". The Guardian. London. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
  7. ^ "BALCO leaks exposed – Yahoo! Sports". Sports.yahoo.com. December 21, 2006. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  8. ^ "Chambers to have extra dope tests". BBC News. May 30, 2007. Retrieved May 27, 2010.
  9. ^ "Victor Conte on CNN before Mitchell Report release". CNN. December 13, 2007.
  10. ^ a b "Lawyer Admits Leaking BALCO / He agrees to plead guilty – prosecutors say they'll end effort to jail reporters". SFGate. February 14, 2007. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  11. ^ Conte, Victor; Nathan Jendrick (February 1, 2009). BALCO: The Straight Dope on Steroids, Barry Bonds, Marion Jones, and What We Can Do to Save Sports. Skyhorse Publishing Company, Incorporated. ISBN 9781602392953.
  12. ^ "BALCO book battle raging". NY Daily News. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  13. ^ "BALCO founder finds redemption, success". NY Daily News. March 19, 2011. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  14. ^ Stewart, James B. (2011). Tangled Webs: How False Statements Are Undermining America: From Martha Stewart to Bernie Madoff. New York: Penguin. ISBN 978-1101476512.
  15. ^ Layden, Tim (June 28, 2017). "With BALCO behind him, Victor Conte is still hustling and loving every minute of it". Sports Illustrated Magazine. Time Inc. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  16. ^ "Chronology of a Scandal". Burlingame-Hillsborough, CA Patch. March 28, 2011. Retrieved June 29, 2017.
  17. ^ "Video: Victor Conte Talks Judah Machine, Ariza Subplot – Boxing News". Boxingscene.com. July 23, 2011. Retrieved October 18, 2012.
  18. ^ Rafael, Dan (March 15, 2012). "Rodriguez-George promises action". ESPN.com. Retrieved June 29, 2017. ...manager Larry Army also brought the controversial Victor Conte – he of the BALCO steroid scandal – into Rodriguez's training camp. Since the scandal and his subsequent jail term, Conte has worked with a handful of fighters, including Nonito Donaire, Andre Berto and Andre Ward.
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