It’s definitely evidence just not very strong evidence on it’s own. Combined with a history of cheating and a few other tells and things look rather damming.
Whatever people do at young age does not have to define the rest of their lives. Did you never do anything stupid in your life?
Also, I don't know why alleged cheating when playing on some site should affect OTB tournament games. They are even governed by different bodies! Just have really thorough anti-cheating measures in place, and see how strong he plays.
I don’t know if you are aware but he was removed from chess.com in 2020 and admired he was cheating then. So has a long term and recent history with cheating, this wasn’t just some youthful indiscretion.
The report includes strong evidence he was recently and repeatedly cheating in games for prize money which shows a serious lack of ethics.
Anyway, I don’t see any significant difference in OTB vs online cheating. It’s at most slightly easier to cheat online, but the OTB prize pools are significant.
