You might have understood it that way but the author is not blaming this community for the occurence itself. The author is in other words saying this situation exists amongst our own for years and it needs to STOP! The occurence was a wake up call that if people dont wake up, itll only get worse and by then itll be too late.

I want to point out one thing, though: the way this article is written makes it seem as though the community is being blamed for this occurrence, and I strongly disagree with that.

True.
Point it, he was considered a celebrity, and yes, many others are today as well.
In past chasiddishe times, that title didn’t exist within our circles, that was left for secular or the modern “enlightened” world.
Chassidim were educated to value, trust only real oivdei Hashem .
Things have unfortunately changed in that regard.

We’re not talking about a sincere person who fell. We’re talking about someone who lived a double life.

It’s basically impossible to be a genuine Yerei Shomayim – like R’ Pinyeh Korf a”h and other similar chassidim – while doing such things.

You can’t tell exactly what a person is feeling. But you can tell a genuine chossid (who might even fall sometimes) from a phony.

You missed the point. People considered him to be a respected figure, which is why they are so shaken when they heard this.

If they only thought of him as a good writer, they would not have been so shaken, just as they aren’t terribly traumatized when a storeowner, for example, is found to have an issue.

If we make it clear to our children that the only people we look up to are ovdei Hashem, than the aftereffect would be considerably less.

Never happened.

It has to do with kids growing up reading his books.

If you want to write about that, that is a different subject. לענ”ד

No one looked up to him as a leader, yiras shomayim, mashpia etc. He was an author who gained peoples trust. People opened their hearts to him. That’s why there’s trauma.

And on the other hand, even our great mashpi’im etc, of 30-40 years ago, have to be careful themselves and we have to be careful with them. … ein oputrupus l’arayos… no one besides a tzadik gomur can be sure they will never fall.

There may have been no way of “checking out his yetzer hara” as the author suggests…. and the same applies to “people who demonstrated an extra measure of devotion to Chassidus, toil in Torah and excellence in middos ”
There is no way to know if one’s “mind controlled their heart and everyday conduct.”