Former broadcaster Max Keeping matters to Ottawans. For more than three decades his face and words entered living rooms during his career as news reader for by far the most popular local newscast in eastern Ontario at CTV Ottawa. A wing of the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario is named after him.

Keeping is the community ambassador for his old TV station, the 2011 United Way Ottawa campaign chairman, Ottawa Senators Foundation chairman, and chairman of the Max Keeping Foundation. His reputation is tied to some of the most important people and organizations in this city. United Way Ottawa officials must be wringing their hands about what the latest news stories concerning him will do for fundraising.

Those stories report that his longtime chauffeur and "best friend," Gary MacDonell, is a repeat childsex offender who has exposed himself to young girls in dressing rooms at hotel pools. Normally, being a child-sex offender makes employment difficult, but in this case the chauffeur was driving a man who helped found a leading charity for poor children. That is just unacceptable.

Keeping has broken no laws, but he is guilty of showing very poor judgment and bringing controversy to his charity and those for which he works. Now the conviction of MacDonell, for whom Keeping has written a letter of support in his case, is tarnishing a number of charities who enlisted Keeping due to his reputation as a community builder. In the real world of public relations, you are often measured by the company you keep.

One must admire Keeping's loyalty, but there are things more important than friendship. Take, for example, the money to be raised for good causes such as United Way Ottawa, which now has as its 2011 campaign chairman a man who retained a repeat sex offender employed to take him to events.

Surely Keeping should have seen this controversy coming, if not for himself, then for the organizations he represents.

Meanwhile, one wonders how court officials and the police could not find the highest profile person with standing in one of the highest profile cases in Ottawa for 11 days and were eventually unable to serve him with papers to cause him to appear in court.

The Crown doesn't usually want people unless it has a good reason. Yet with all his public appearances and charity work, these officials couldn't track Keeping down.

It's not as though Keeping shouldn't have known they were coming. The former broadcaster sent a lawyer in his place to explain why he wasn't there.

Maybe Keeping didn't want the bad publicity associated with a court appearance, but then, were he frightened of publicity over the case, he wouldn't have written the previous letter of support for Mac-Donell. Papers or no papers from the court, maybe Keeping could have appeared to defend his friend as he had promised, at least for consistency's sake.

Meanwhile, Ottawa Police Services Board chairman Eli El-Chantiry was told by the police that the inability to serve papers is being investigated internally. He declined to comment further. But that inability again reinforces the idea that maybe a new out-of-town person would sweep the force clean as chief of the Ottawa Police Service.

Good people and worthy causes have put much faith in Max Keeping. Some, perhaps many, are wondering today if they did the right thing.

Keeping is guilty of nothing but bad judgment and poor public relations. Yet often for that there is a price to be paid.

Ken Gray is an Ottawa journalist. His column runs on Wednesdays and he blogs daily on The Bulldog at ottawacitizen.com. He welcomes your emails at kengray20@gmail.com.