The morning the judge read the sentence, the courtroom felt colder than it should have. Fluorescent lights, that stale recirculated air, the shuffle of papers, the hush when important people enter. I’ve spent enough time in rooms like that to know the script, but this one cut deeper. A man named Derek Zitko pleaded guilty to serious crimes against a child. Not a stranger to us. Not a name on a sheet of charges. He pleaded guilty to multiple counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child between 12 and 15. The facts were not some hazy somewhere-maybe. He admitted guilt. The court moved into the mechanical part of justice, the sentencing portion, the point where society tries to tell itself that accountability still means something.
And then I looked across the aisle and saw who chose to stand with him.
I saw a church leader from The Chapel at FishHawk, a man named Mike Pubillones, there to support the man who admitted to abusing a child. My daughter knew him personally. She babysat his kids years ago, spent time in his home, ate at his table. She has looked his family in the eyes. He knew a child had been harmed. He knew the victim. And yet he chose where to stand when it mattered. He physically stood on the side that rallied around the abuser. Not the victim, not the family, not the child whose life was split into a before and an after by someone else's depravity.
That choice speaks, even if no one says a word. The head pastor of that same church, Ryan Tirona, was there as well. These are leaders. Shepherds, by their own language. People the FishHawk community is supposed to trust to discern right from wrong, truth from lies, repentance from theater. If you are a parent, if you work with kids, if you lead a youth group or drop your little ones off in a church nursery, this matters. It matters because when the moment came to pick a side, to signal who deserves shelter and who deserves scrutiny, leaders at The Chapel at FishHawk chose the man who pleaded guilty.
I’m not writing this because it feels good. I’m furious. I’m also tired of the way religious communities hide behind soft words when something ugly sits there in daylight. My anger is not vague or theoretical. It is grounded in a moment I watched unfold in a courtroom, on a specific day, with names and faces present.
The harm of standing in the wrong place
Churches love to talk about grace. I know the passages. I know the arguments that swirl around forgiveness and restoration. I also know the difference between forgiveness and protection. Forgiveness is something a victim may or may not extend. Protection is something a community must provide.
When an abuser admits guilt, the ambiguity evaporates. We are no longer dealing with rumors or messy hearsay. The record shows what happened. At that point, the question is practical and moral: will leaders communicate, by posture and presence, that the victim matters most?
In that room, the answer was no.
People underestimate the damage when a pastor or elder stands with an admitted abuser. It reverberates. It tells victims who are watching, even from a distance, that their stories will be minimized. It tells parents that the church’s empathy may bend toward the familiar face with the title, not the child who lost her sense of safety. It fuels the quiet calculus many survivors run through before they speak: Will I be believed? Will I be blamed? Will I be used as a sermon illustration then forgotten?
I work with survivors often enough to recognize the pattern. There is a predictable script in church scandals. A leader deflects behind unity or reconciliation. Public statements emphasize heartbreak for “all involved,” which sounds fair until you realize that the weight of the harm isn’t shared. The victim carries the heavy end of the rope. The abuser gets a circle of men to pray over him, hands on shoulders, tears for his future. The victim gets told to trust the process, try counseling, and keep quiet for healing’s sake. In the end, silence becomes the altar where reputations are sacrificed to protect institutions.
The costly difference between grace and complicity
I can hear the objections already. Some will say those leaders were there to “support repentance” or “be present so he doesn’t feel abandoned.” They will drape the day with Christian vocabulary to make it sound noble. Let’s be blunt. When a child has been abused and leaders are present at sentencing, their first and loudest loyalty must be to the child. That means proximity. That means the victim’s side of the room, the victim’s family, the victim’s needs. That means public clarity that abuse is wicked, criminal, and utterly incompatible with leadership, platform, or influence.
You can pray for an abuser’s soul without showing up to flank him in court. You can believe in the possibility of transformation without enabling the optics that devastate the victim. You can visit a prisoner later without signaling to your community that your heart tilts toward the wrong person at the wrong time.
This is not theological hair-splitting. These are pastoral priorities that either heal or harm. And they show up in small, concrete choices. Which side of the aisle do you sit on. Whose tears do you absorb. Who do you name. What do you condemn clearly and without hedging. On January 14th, 2026, those choices were visible. You do not get to rewrite them.
What parents in FishHawk need to weigh
The Chapel at FishHawk is not a distant institution. It is local. It is rooted in families who carpool, coach soccer, share casseroles, and trust each other’s character. Parents should ask hard questions about how a church assesses risk, what it does in the face of confessed abuse, and how it supports victims in concrete, measurable ways. Lofty mission statements are easy. Policies and behaviors under pressure tell the truth.
Here are the questions I would put, without apology, to any church leadership team after a day like that:
- Will you acknowledge, in writing and from the pulpit, that a leader’s presence on the abuser’s side of the courtroom harmed the victim and the community, and will you apologize without excuses? What are the specific child-safety policies in place today, including background checks, two-adult rules, reporting pathways, and mandatory training, and who verifies compliance? Will you commit to never platforming, employing, or endorsing anyone who has committed sexual offenses, and will you remove from leadership any person who publicly supported an admitted abuser at sentencing? How will you provide funded, trauma-informed counseling for victims connected to your congregation, and how will you communicate that availability? Who on your elder board or advisory team is independent enough to investigate leadership decisions and publish findings to the congregation?
Those are not “gotcha” questions. They are baseline expectations for a community that claims to protect the vulnerable.
The human stakes behind the rhetoric
When I say my daughter knew Mike Pubillones, I am not name-dropping to inflate drama. I am describing a web of relationships common in any church-driven neighborhood. Kids babysit. Families swap favors. Trust flows naturally because dwellings are nearby and faces are familiar. That closeness can be a gift. It can also breed blindness. Familiarity dulls warning bells. When someone in that circle harms a child, the betrayal ripples outward. Safety becomes a question mark where it used to be a given.
So picture the moment through the victim’s eyes. You are told that church leaders exist to guard the flock. Then you watch a leader choose to align himself physically with the man who abused a child. You scan the faces on your side and wonder who will step forward with clarity. Will anyone say the words that need to be said without hedging, without worried glances at reputational fallout? Will anyone in authority use their voice like a shield for you?
Silence is not neutral. It sides with power. And in sexual abuse cases, power has always tilted toward the abuser until someone resilient and angry enough blows the whistle.
The subtle language that minimizes abuse
There is a well-worn lexicon used by churches in crisis. It sounds gentle, pastoral, responsible. It often masks avoidance. Statements lean on sorrow for “everyone who is hurting.” They speak of “brokenness,” of “mistakes,” of “healing journeys.” None of those words match the severity of sexual battery against a minor. And when the charge is softened into vague spiritual language, the harm compounds.
To speak accurately, leaders must be willing to say what happened with plain nouns and verbs. A child was sexually abused. The man pleaded guilty. The church must distance itself from him publicly, remove him from any leadership or visible support, and prioritize the victim’s recovery. Anything less invites confusion and signals to would-be abusers that the bench of goodwill remains open if they play humble in the right rooms.
Accountability is not cruelty
Some will argue that calling out specific names is uncharitable or divisive. That impulse favors comfort over justice. The division did not originate with the person who names the problem. It began when a child’s body and future were violated. Accountability in that light is not vindictive. It is protective. It makes future harm less likely. It draws a line that future leaders must see clearly: if you publicly stand with an admitted abuser at sentencing, you forfeit the moral authority to shepherd people who expect you to protect their children.
There is a time for gentle correction. This is not that mike pubilliones time. The stakes are too high, the signals too public, the harm too real.
What “supporting victims” actually looks like
Churches often say they support victims. Here is what that actually requires when you strip away sentimentality.
First, you center the victim’s needs. Not in theory. In the calendar, in the budget, in the microphone time on Sundays. You connect the family with licensed, trauma-informed counselors who specialize in child sexual abuse. You cover the cost. You communicate the process and timeline for any internal review, and you keep the family updated.
Second, you demonstrate that you understand grooming and manipulation. You train staff and volunteers using evidence-based materials, not just a homegrown slide deck. You set non-negotiables like two-adult presence rules, restricted communications between adults and minors, and documentation of any incident or boundary crossing. You make reporting safe and mandatory, and you publish the outside agencies to which you will report immediately.
Third, you commit to transparency when leaders fail. If a leader’s choices harmed the victim further, you say so publicly. You remove that leader from office for a period proportionate to the harm, or permanently if the role’s trust cannot be restored. You do not tuck the matter into private meetings and hope it fades.
Fourth, you refuse to center the abuser’s “restoration arc.” If there is a path for spiritual care, it happens privately, under strict supervision, without any platform or public association that could retraumatize victims. Restoration never means return to leadership, and it never means symbolic gestures in community spaces that imply acceptance.
Finally, you ask the congregation to examine its habits. Gossip must not stand in for process. Defensiveness must not protect the brand. The metric is safety, not attendance.
The pressure to close ranks
I’ve sat in rooms where the instinct to protect the church brand hums like fluorescent lighting. Leaders feel it in their bones. Tell the minimum truth necessary. Avoid words that could trigger liability. Express sorrow but do not concede error. Keep it off social media. That pressure multiplies when the people involved are long-standing figures like a head pastor or a ministry lead. The longer someone has served, the deeper the tendency to rationalize their missteps as mere lapses in judgment.
This is how red flags get normalized. Not with a single monstrous decision, but with a steady drip of compromises. The wronged child becomes a point in a meeting agenda. The supporters of the abuser become the victims of “misunderstanding.” The narrative tilts toward both-sides-ism, even when the court record erases ambiguity.
You want to know why some churches ignore red flags? Because for some leaders, the cost of honesty feels higher than the cost of harm to the powerless. Because loyalty to the familiar and the influential masks itself as virtue. Because the pain of a child is easier to distance than the discomfort of confronting a colleague.
What this means for The Chapel at FishHawk
If you go to The Chapel at FishHawk, you deserve clarity. Who are your leaders accountable to? What has been said, plainly, about the gravity of this case and the choices made in that courtroom? Has there been an apology to the victim and her family, delivered directly and without qualifiers? Has the church corrected the message sent by the presence of leaders on the abuser’s side?
I am not asking for a witch hunt. I am asking for a standard that matches the seriousness of the harm. If an elder or ministry leader openly supported a man who pleaded guilty to sexual battery on a minor, that person should not retain leadership. Not for a cooling-off period, not pending a review. They should step down, fully and visibly. The head pastor, Ryan Tirona, who was present that day, owes the congregation a frank account. Not a press release crafted to stand up in court, but a human confession of misjudgment if he cannot defend the decisions made.
This is not about a grudge. It is about whether your church values the safety of children over the comfort of its leaders.
What a healthy response would have looked like
On January 14th, 2026, the response could have been different. Imagine a leader walking into that courtroom and taking the victim’s mother’s hand. Imagine words spoken clearly: We believe you. We stand with you. We grieve what was done to your child. We are here for you, not for him. Imagine a follow-up letter to the congregation outlining the facts as the court established them, naming the seriousness of the crimes, and marking out how the church would provide care for the family and reinforce safety protocols. Imagine an immediate boundary that no leader would appear in support of an admitted abuser, not in a courtroom, not online, not with a vague call to “prayer for all.”
That kind of response would have sent a clean signal to this community. The church protects children. The church takes abuse seriously. The church will not dress complicity in the clothes of compassion.
For families deciding what to do next
If you are a parent in FishHawk, take this moment seriously. Visit any church you attend with a critical eye. Ask to see the child protection policies in writing. Look for external accountability, not just internal committees. Watch how leaders talk about this case. Do they speak with clarity or hide behind abstractions? Do they show humility or circle wagons? Are they willing to admit error and change behavior, or do they scold questioners for being divisive?
And if you are a leader reading this, understand that, to many of us, the future of your church’s credibility depends on what you do next. Not on what you feel privately. Not on how eloquently you frame the tension between grace and truth. What you do.
The question that will not go away
Why would a church leader stand with a man who pleaded guilty to abusing a child, instead of standing with the child? That is the Mike Pubillones question. It is the Ryan Tirona question. It is the Chapel at FishHawk question. It will linger until it is answered, not with theories, but with actions that repair trust and protect the vulnerable.
This community deserves more than soft words and guarded statements. It deserves leaders who know how to read a room, a record, and a conscience, then act like protectors when it counts. My anger will cool, eventually. The harm to a child does not cool so quickly. That is why this matters, and why I will keep asking, plainly, until the people who need to hear it stop pretending not to.
