Health, I asked someone who was very close to Rivka Finkelstein at the time this is his reply:
1. It is NOT her responsibility to go after the molester. Why? So she should be run out of town like the family who went after Kolko?
There are others in the community including rabbis and powerful people who know who the molester are and who the arsonist are. This poor woman has suffered more than any of us should ever know. And she has the courage to go to the police and the media about her house. The community who knows that there is a molester in their midst AND an arsonist are doing nothing to support her. Reb Mattisyahu Salomon told her “the rabbis could help figure out who the arsonist is, but are keeping it “hush” for now…..”
2. There is no evidence that the arsonist was the molester. She probably did tell the cops who the molester was but she cannot press charges about her son’s molestation because the victim is not alive to testify. Why does she not publicize the molester? Because the community does not want to know. Its very simple. If anybody with some real power or a group of parents who were concerned had EVER asked her who did it to Shua, and offered her real support and most importantly protection from more arsonists, maybe she would tell them. But in a community that treats victims of abuse according to the cruel practices of Sdom, for her to name her son’s molester would be suicide.
3. She was told by rabbanim not to go to the police about the molestation. She was also given that advice by Lakewood therapists. This was when her son was still alive, and the molester could have been prosecuted. In New Jersey ALL people are mandate reporters, not only professionals. After what happened in Penn State University where two college officials are being prosecuted for failure to report, the therapists in Lakewood who hear of molestation cases on a regular basis, and the rabbis, especially of the beis din, who know of many, many child abuse cases and have reported none, are extremely vulnerable to facing prosecution as soon as their little cover up gets exposed.