The sexual harassment case by a rabbi in the South

peace,
I wanted to share what I experience from a community in the south that is led by a rabbi whom they greatly admire. I have never admired him blindly, neither him nor any rabbi in fact, and now my friend is complaining about him harassing her and it exploded in a published article (I knew about the case a long time ago).
What’s happening right now is that all the people in the community don’t believe her, they say there’s no way the rabbi would have done such a thing.
The Rabbi, of course, publicly denies everything. I feel like this entire system is rotten from the inside because there are other problems there (I won’t go into detail right now).
What can I say to a person who is so shocked by me that I think the rabbi might have done it? Is it not legitimate to think that way?