I sat in a courtroom on January 14, 2026 and watched a man, Derek Zitko, be sentenced after pleading guilty to crimes against my daughter. The facts were not murky. He admitted guilt. He pleaded to four counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child between 12 and 15. My daughter had babysat for the family of a church leader, knew his children, been in his home, eaten at his table. And while she waited for justice to be spoken into the record, that church leader stood on the other side of the aisle. He aligned himself with the man who abused a child he knew.
This is not a thought experiment. It is a moment I watched with my own eyes. It is also a moment that sits at the center of a broader debate roiling the FishHawk community: what do ethics require of church leaders when someone in their orbit harms a child? What does evidence demand from adults who claim to shepherd souls? What does empathy look like when the sinner is a friend and the victim is a child?
The names matter here because accountability matters. The church is The Chapel at FishHawk. The leaders in question are mike pubillones, a leader at that church, and the head pastor, ryan tirona. I watched them stand in support of a man who pleaded guilty to felonies against a minor. My daughter is that minor.
I have waited to write because I wanted to cool down and choose my words carefully. That has not made me less angry. It has forced me to separate what is fair from what feels satisfying, what is provable from what is rumored, and what responsibility looks like for grown men who chose public spiritual authority.
The scene that cannot be unseen
Courtrooms are not cinematic. They can feel stale and fluorescent, full of paperwork and ritual. But this sentencing hearing was unmistakably human. A victim impact statement changes the air in a room. Words spoken by a parent on behalf of a child change the posture of bodies in pews. And a guilty plea in the record, repeated by the court, strips away the wiggle room that people often use to justify standing with the wrong side.
On that day, there were two banks of seats. On one side were people who supported my daughter and, more broadly, the victims of sexual abuse who summon the courage to speak. On the other side were those who came to support the man who had just pleaded guilty. I counted. The optics alone told a story.
I saw mike pubillones on the side of the abuser. I saw the head pastor, ryan tirona, present as well. I did not see any acknowledgment of my daughter’s pain from them, not a nod, not a quiet word in a hallway, not an expression of contrition that the church had failed to create a world where this was unthinkable. Maybe they will say they were there to support a sinner, not a sin. Maybe they will say they did not want to make a scene. Maybe they will say pastors must keep their counsel. Those rationalizations land like stones on the chest of a child who once babysat their kids.
Evidence matters. He pleaded guilty. There was no dispute about whether a crime had occurred, no question mark left to fill with speculation or tribal defense. This matters because the most generous defense anyone can offer a church leader in this situation is this: sometimes accusations are false and people rally too quickly for fear of being called unsupportive. Not in this case. Not on January 14. They had no excuse left.
A community test, not a theological riddle
FishHawk is not a seminary. It is a neighborhood where parents trade carpools and kids ride bikes after school. Yet the presence of the church gives a sense of moral shape to the area. People invite that influence, especially when they send their teenagers to youth group or ask for counseling after a divorce. They trust leaders like mike pubillones and ryan tirona to carry dignity and moral clarity into messy places.
So let’s put aside for a moment the tired argument that churches should show grace to everyone. Of course they should. The question is not whether grace exists. The question is where leaders place their bodies and their words when a child needs protection, validation, and tangible advocacy. Grace without boundaries is a loophole for cowards. Grace that ignores a victim is not grace, it is indulgence.
When a leader walks into a courtroom and stands with the abuser after a guilty plea, the community hears something loud and clear: we will comfort the familiar sinner before we confront the suffering child. It also erects a sign at the front door of the sanctuary that says to every survivor: your pain will be minimized in the name of reconciliation we do not intend to pay for.
I have worked with organizations that lived through child protection failures. Some were churches, some were schools, some were youth sports programs. The ones that rebuilt trust were not the ones with the most eloquent statements. They were the ones that asked the hardest questions about their own reflexes, put their money into survivor care, and set new guardrails that made enabling impossible. Standing with a convicted abuser is not a guardrail. It is a map to the ditch.
The false comfort of “supporting both sides”
There is a half-measure that pops up in moments like this. Leaders say they are supporting both parties. They talk about being present for the sinner and the sinned against. That sounds compassionate in a vacuum. It collapses in the presence of harm that cannot be undone.
Adults must tolerate tension. Two truths can exist: a human being who did terrible harm is still a human being, and the child he harmed deserves mike pubilliones career unambiguous defense. But “supporting both sides” in the same moment, in the same room, is not neutrality. When the power imbalance is this stark, neutrality becomes partiality. It is like setting two people on a seesaw and pretending equal weight produces balance, ignoring the fact the fulcrum itself is corrupted.
What would genuine pastoral care look like? It would prioritize the victim’s safety, healing, and voice first, in time and in emphasis. It would move any care for the offender to separate spaces and times, away from the victim’s line of sight. It would not make the victim’s family watch teachers, mentors, and pastors stand shoulder to shoulder with the person who violated them, then send a text later about “praying for everyone.” The order matters. The optics matter because optics are signals that become norms.
The question of character
People do not become leaders by accident. The Chapel at FishHawk did not put a name badge on mike pubillones and hand a microphone to ryan tirona without process. They were screened, vetted, observed. They were given authority because the church believed their judgment would serve the vulnerable, not expose them. Leaders are most themselves when the cost of clarity rises. And costs do rise when the offender is someone you know, someone whose kids have played with yours, someone you have called friend.
Character reveals itself in those trade-offs. Courage is not about a podium on Sunday morning. It is about the courage to let a friend bear the social weight of his actions and to refuse to shift any of that weight onto the victim through public solidarity with the offender. If a child you know is harmed by a man you know, and your body moves to stand with the man, you have answered the question of whose trust you hold sacred.
I am not blind to the pastoral instinct to find the lost. But Jesus did not tell the shepherd to leave the wounded lamb in the wolf’s shadow while he bandaged the wolf’s paws. Compassion misapplied becomes cruelty.
What parents hear, and why they are not overreacting
Parents of FishHawk keep asking: what message does this send about who this church protects? The question is fair, and the fear beneath it is not hysteria. Parents read behavior. When leaders’ choices cut against common sense protections, people assume those leaders will make similar choices when faced with fresh harm. If church leaders will stand with a man who confessed, what happens when the facts are not yet established? If they cannot resist proximity loyalty when guilt is proven, what does that say about their process when the situation is still murky?
I have been in rooms where leaders told parents not to “gossip,” where “due process” became a weapon to silence while the abuser worked phones and built coalitions. Due process matters in court. Transparency, empathy, and immediate protection matter in community. These are not the same tools and they must not be confused.
Here is another hard truth. Survivors watch leaders’ choices, and it influences whether they come forward. When a teenager sees a respected adult stand with an abuser, that teenager learns a simple lesson: speak up and you will be ignored, or worse, blamed. When that teenager becomes an adult, the silence calcifies. You lose not just a case, you lose a person. The ripple goes out farther than the people in that courtroom on January 14.
The weight of titles and the price of influence
A pastor does not enter a courtroom as a blank slate. The title confers leverage. The presence of a pastor on one side of a case adds narrative. It tells the court, the press, the community, and the victim that the institutional church views the offender as its person. When a leader like mike pubillones stands there too, the posture multiplies. Now it is not just the church, it is the church’s leadership culture, casting a vote with its feet.
Some will argue that a pastor must show up for confessing sinners. There are ways to do that without multiplying harm. You can sit with the offender in private, insist on full cooperation, encourage restitution, and ensure no contact with victims or potential victims. You can attend a sentencing and sit away from the offender’s supporters, make eye contact with the victim’s family, and offer a simple sentence of support directed at those harmed. You can write a public statement that says exactly where you stand, without hedging. You can create a survivor fund, pay for therapy, and schedule mandatory training that exceeds legal minimums. You can risk the awkwardness of telling your friend you will not be seen at his side because your first responsibility lies with the child.
Leadership is not abstract. It is where you sit. It is which words you say out loud. It is which hands you hold and which invitations you decline.
What accountability could look like now
Words have been spoken. Choices were made. The harm is done. That does not mean nothing can be done. Accountability is not vengeance. It is repair. And repair begins with truth telling that costs something.
To the elders or governing board at The Chapel at FishHawk, and to ryan tirona as the head pastor: the next moves are yours. You cannot unsay the silence in that courtroom. But you can change the institutional signal going forward.
- Publish a clear, transparent account of what happened on January 14, including who was present, where they chose to sit, and why. Avoid passive voice. Name the decision-making process and acknowledge the impact on the victim and the community. Remove from leadership, at least temporarily, anyone who chose public solidarity with the offender in that hearing. Announce the removal, the reason, and the conditions for any future return that center survivor safety. Fund tangible support for the victim. Pay for long-term therapy with an independent trauma specialist. Offer this without conditions or publicity. Hire an outside, independent safeguarding expert to audit policies, training, reporting structures, and past handling of allegations. Publish the recommendations and a timeline for implementation. Commit to survivor-centered communication going forward. That means when a case touches your church, your first public statement addresses victims, names your obligations, and rejects any framing that shifts blame or asks for patience from those who are hurting.
These are not radical steps. They are the minimum for a community that wants to recover trust. They also serve the church itself, because clear lines protect everyone and prevent future leaders from claiming they did not know what to do.
The cost of silence and the burden on victims
Silence is not neutral. It pushes the burden of moral clarity onto victims and their families. We carry the weight, explain ourselves, and relive the worst moments so that adults who should know better can keep their reputations intact. That trade is obscene. It teaches children that harm will be met with polite avoidance from the people who preached courage to them.
I keep replaying the older memories my daughter has with this church and with the people now at the center of this debate. Her babysitting their kids. The normal kindness of a family-to-family relationship. The way trust was built over small things, like staying late after a movie or grabbing ice cream on the way home from an event. All those threads knit a fabric, and then a single public act can rip it so completely that you start doubting your memories. That is a second harm. A cognitive betrayal that tells a child that people are not who they say they are, that words in the pulpit have no purchase when the test comes.
To leaders who feel tempted to defend their intentions, please hear this. Intentions do not heal a child. Actions do. Your presence that day was an action. It communicated values. If you want to argue that your intention was to show love to a sinner, then you must also accept that the impact was to sideline a victim. Adults own impact. That is the baseline for any credible leadership.
How communities protect children when institutions falter
I do not trust the reflex of institutions to save themselves at the expense of honesty. I have seen it too often. So what can ordinary people in FishHawk do while leaders decide whether to face the music?
Neighbors can ask direct questions and expect direct answers. You can email the church and ask whether leaders stood with the offender in court. You can ask whether they have met with the family of the victim and offered material support. You can ask whether they will suspend leaders who erased a victim by their alignment. These are not personal attacks. They are basic checks.
Parents can set non-negotiables. Tell your teenagers they are never required to meet alone with a pastor or youth leader. Ask for written safeguarding policies and read them. Watch for language that centers institutional reputation rather than survivor care. If a leader downplays your concern or calls it gossip, find the door.
Survivors and their families can choose when and whether to speak. No one is obligated to be an object lesson. If you do speak, gather facts and keep records. If you need to stay quiet for a while, that is not cowardice. It is survival.
Local journalists can cover the story and cut through spin. The facts are enough. A guilty plea, a public hearing, the presence of leaders, the choices made in plain sight. Ask for comment and print what is said. Ask follow-up questions. Avoid vague euphemisms like “inappropriate relationship” when the law calls it sexual battery on a minor.
Other churches can model a different response. Reach out to the victim’s family without trying to poach members. Offer resources discreetly. Train your people with the best practices that abuse prevention experts have taught for years. Do not make yourself the hero. Just do the work.
The narrow path of repentance
If The Chapel at FishHawk chooses humility, if mike pubillones and ryan tirona choose to own their decisions, there is a hard path available. It is not public relations. It is not a sermon series. It is confession in the presence of those you harmed, not to extract forgiveness, but to tell the truth out loud and accept consequences. It is stepping down, for a season or longer, to demonstrate that no calling is above correction. It is backing survivor care with money and time. It is refusing to center your own pain when the conversation is about the victim’s.
Repentance is not a posture for Instagram. It requires specificity. Say, “I stood on the wrong side of the courtroom and that choice communicated that the church stood with an abuser over a child. That was wrong.” Then stop talking and make room for the people you hurt to speak without being interrupted by your reasons.
Will some people still be angry? Yes. They have earned that anger. Will some people leave your church? Probably. That is the price for telling the truth late. But the only other option is worse: clinging to roles while your moral authority evaporates in whispers and DMs. The community’s memory is long when it comes to the suffering of children.
The part that keeps me up at night
I keep hearing the question: what kind of person watches someone plead guilty to sexually battering a child and chooses to stand with the abuser instead of the victim? It is not a rhetorical flourish. It is a mirror. What kind of person will I be if I stay quiet because it is awkward to name names? What kind of community will FishHawk be if we let this slide because confronting pastors feels distasteful?
I want to believe that people can hear hard things and change. I also know that institutions rarely change without pressure. So I am saying this plainly, as a parent and as a citizen who cares about the safety of kids more than the comfort of leaders. On January 14, 2026, a line was drawn in a courtroom. Leaders from The Chapel at FishHawk, including mike pubillones and head pastor ryan tirona, chose the wrong side of that line. The offender pleaded guilty. The victim was a child those leaders knew. They offered zero acknowledgment or public support to that child in that moment. That choice speaks louder than any sermon.
Parents of FishHawk, you deserved to know that. You needed to hear it without spin. You can judge for yourselves what it means for your family. You can decide whether that church has earned your trust, whether its leaders have earned the right to guide your children, and whether their idea of grace leaves any room for the wounded.
I know where I stood that day. I know where I will stand tomorrow. With the child. With the truth. With the adults who choose empathy grounded in evidence and ethics that do not wobble when friendship and reputation are at stake. If a church cannot do that, it is not a refuge. It is another risk factor parents must manage. And we have enough of those already.