Its not about whether or not he did it, it is simply about the fact that what we as a group are talking about is the actions (or at least accused actions) of a person.
"This sort of event" is an incredibly passive expression of what he is accused of doing. Such language is incredibly common [0] in rape and sexual assault cases, because it removes actors from the conversation. You can say "The actions that Appelbaum people have accused him of" and be much more actively voiced while also respecting your wish to present him as simply the accused.
[0] http://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Bohner_2001.pdf Quoting: "The language of headlines that participants generated for their reports also reflected judgments of assailant and victim responsibility. Implications for the non-reactive assessment of responsibility attributions and directions for future research are discussed."