BALCO founder sentenced to prison

Victor Conte, the self-described nutritionist at the center of the far-reaching Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative doping scandal, was sentenced Tuesday in San Francisco federal court to eight months of confinement as part of a plea bargain struck with prosecutors.

Conte, 55, of San Mateo, Calif., who entered guilty pleas in July to one count of conspiracy to distribute steroids and a second count of laundering a portion of a check, will spend four months in prison and another four under house arrest. He was also fined $10,000.

U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan said he hoped those "engaged in the use of steroids or performance-enhancing drugs are taking a look at what happened today." He also asserted in a conference call that the case had "galvanized a debate" nationwide about the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional and Olympic sports.

The BALCO case erupted two years ago. Dozens of prominent athletes, among them baseball slugger Barry Bonds and gold-medal-winning track star Marion Jones, were revealed to have ties to Conte or to his firm, the Burlingame, Calif.-based Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative.

A designer steroid, THG, discovered in the course of the BALCO investigation, is now banned. Congress, which in a number of hearings has sought to explore the extent of illicit doping, is weighing a more strict and uniform approach in regulating performance-enhancing substances.

The BALCO investigation seems far from done. The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that federal agents last month searched the laboratory and home of an Illinois chemist, Patrick Arnold, named in an Internal Revenue Service report as the reputed source of the designer steroid THG, a liquid code-named "the clear."

Arnold is also known as a source of the steroid precursor androstenedione, which St. Louis Cardinal slugger Mark McGwire said he used in breaking baseball's single-season home run record in 1998. At the time, baseball had not banned the substance.

The case has illuminated the limits of court proceedings to effect change.

Conte said Tuesday: "Even the so-called 'gold standard' anti-doping programs designed for Olympic-caliber athletes are ineffective, let alone the inept programs that exist in professional sports."

He also pledged his assistance in establishing stronger testing programs and, specifically, "to explain exactly how elite athletes routinely beat the existing anti-doping programs."

The BALCO case was announced in February 2004 to great fanfare, with then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft announcing a 42-count indictment against Conte and three others at a news conference in Washington.

No athletes were named in that indictment and no athletes have been charged.

"Typically, in drug distribution cases, end users are not targets," Matt Parella, chief of the U.S. attorney's San Jose branch, said in explaining why athletes have not been prosecuted.

Asked if authorities believe any of the athlete witnesses offered untruthful testimony, Ryan declined to comment.

Federal sentencing rules, now under review, treat steroids with leniency.

Greg Anderson, Bonds' trainer, was sentenced to six months of confinement after pleading guilty to money laundering and a steroid distribution charge. Anderson, 39, of Burlingame, Calif., will spend three months behind bars, another three under house arrest.

James Valente, 50, of Redwood City, Calif., BALCO's vice president, was sentenced to three years' probation.

A fourth defendant, track coach Remi Korchemny, is expected to get probation at a later sentencing date.

Conte and Anderson remain free on bond. Each is due to surrender to authorities at the beginning of December.

The BALCO court files in San Francisco contain a report that recounts IRS special agent Jeff Novitzky's Sept. 3, 2003 interview with Conte in which Conte purportedly asserts that Bonds was, "one of the players that Anderson brought to Conte to obtain the clear and the cream." Conte added, "Bonds takes `the clear' and `the cream' on a regular basis."

"The cream" was code for another steroid.

Bonds, according to grand jury testimony obtained by the Chronicle, testified that he had received a cream and a clear substance from Anderson but thought he was using arthritis balm and flaxseed oil.

Congress has repeatedly in recent months questioned Major League Baseball's doping policies.