[petertodd]

Without specifics, there's not enough information in the allegations to attempt to speak up in defense - if you didn't personally witness one of these alleged assaults, you would be loath to say they didn't happen on a different occasion. Perhaps Appelbaum is careful in choosing victims, perhaps the assaults never happened. You just don't know, so you say nothing.

Putting specific details to the allegations on the other hand would make that quite possible - a lack of defense in that case would be an indication that the accusations were true. But without specifics that's not the case.