Victor Conte, the head of the BALCO lab who was sentenced to prison on Tuesday, combined a salesman's talents with a brilliant ability to reinvent himself to become the world's best known sports-steroid dealer.
After leaving court with a sentence of four months jail and four months home confinement, the former bass guitarist turned self-taught nutritionist sought to create a new role for himself -- fighter of steroids in sport.
"It is said that I have become the poster child for the wrongdoing in Olympic as well as professional sports," he said on the courthouse steps.
"Ironically, I find myself as someone qualified to help solve this problem plaguing sports, precisely because I've been a major contributor to the controversy," he said.
Conte admitted to one count of conspiracy to distribute steroids and a money-laundering count in his plea deal.
A college dropout, the 55-year-old Conte started his career in the late 1960s as professional guitarist, playing with the jazz funk band "Tower of Power" at one point and touring with pianist Herbie Hancock in 1980.
By 1983, with three kids at home, Conte tired of life on the road and became a self-educated nutritionist after many hours of study at Stanford library.
He used a sharp mind and gregarious personality to win clients for his firm BALCO, or Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative, based in Burlingame, California. The lab advertised services such as testing blood and urine for athletes.
In more recent years, Conte turned to distributing steroids to track and field, football and baseball players, starting with football player Bill Romanowski, he told investigators according to a 2003 memo submitted to federal court.
In this document, Conte said he provided steroids to athletes such as baseball great Barry Bonds and track-and-field star Marion Jones in exchange for their endorsement of his ZMA zinc product.
Bonds has denied knowingly using steroids while Jones has repeatedly denied taking steroids.
By his own accounting, Conte, who is scheduled to start his prison sentence on Dec. 1, made millions of dollars worth of sales of ZMA.
US Attorney Kevin Ryan said if Conte is sincere about a new start as an anti-steroid sleuth, he could follow in the footsteps of Frank Abagnale, the former con artist featured in the film Catch Me if You Can. Abagnale later worked with the FBI.
"If Conte wants to help out law enforcement take more action against individuals like himself who have engaged in conspiracy to distribute steroids in efforts to mask and get around testing programs we would seriously consider his offer," Ryan said.
Meanwhile, a UN treaty to fight doping in sports was unanimously passed on Wednesday by the 191 UNESCO member states.
The treaty, however, will not be enforced until 30 member governments ratify it. Then, only those that have ratified the accord will be bound by it.
The International Convention Against Doping in Sport, which would require regular doping tests and common penalties, seeks to draw governments into what has long been mainly the domain of national sporting federations.
The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is hoping the treaty will be put into effect before the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, which starts on Feb. 10.
The accord would require members to adopt policies similar to the world anti-doping code.
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