hypothetically speaking...

Say you've just been told that a person or people that sit at the helm of a "show association" within your breed industry have recently been caught doing something illegal. Say there is proof that this person or people broke into confidential files to obtain information about a registry and/or some of its members and publicly revealed information about said registry and/or members. Their motivation was to publicly tarnish the registry and or said members reputations in order to draw show goers away from the registry shows and in turn hope these show goers participate in the shows held by the law breakers. When all is said in done, their ultimate motive is greed. Say they decided to pick on a member, however, maybe that member does not have the funds to prosecute, but has the proof and would win if they did prosecute.  Do you think the law breaker(s) should be reprimanded by the "show association"? Would you be willing to assist the victim(s) so that they could prosecute?

Here is my take, I believe, people like this should be reprimanded AND that reprimand should be harsh. "Banning them from being able to participate in any type of breed functions for a period of say 5 or 10 years" type harsh. They not only broke the law, but violated a code of ethics, and could harm the "show associations" reputation. Being a fairly young breed here in the States, we cannot afford to have greedy people at the helms of our organizations. When greed motivates, someone somewhere always gets hurt, and unfortunately this type of behavior will ultimately cause the breed's demise. If these people were allowed to get away with this, who's to say their unethical behavior would stop there. Maybe they would rig the show. Pay off judges. Can you imagine the ripple effect then! Can you imagine how much harm that could do to the breed?

So I want to know your opinions on this...