Understanding Grooming and Denial: The Mike Pubillones Conversation

There are moments when a community finds out exactly what its leaders value. Not through mission statements or Sunday messages, but by where they choose to stand when the truth is in the room and a child is on the record as a victim.

On January 14, 2026, I sat in a courtroom and watched a man named Derek Zitko plead guilty to four counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a child ages 12 to 15. The facts were not in dispute. He pled. The judge sentenced. My family exhaled one of those breaths you only learn to breathe when you have a victim in your home, when your child has survived someone else’s choices. We were there, not because we wanted to be, but because a child deserves not to stand alone at the end of a long, ugly road.

Across the aisle stood men who knew us, who had been welcomed into our home. One of them, a church leader from The Chapel at FishHawk, stood physically by the man who had just pled guilty. That leader is named Mike Pubillones. My daughter knew him well enough to babysit his children. He and his family knew ours. And still he stood on the other side of the courtroom, next to the defendant, in solidarity with a man who admitted guilt, while offering no visible acknowledgment or support to the child he knew.

That picture matters, because it shows a pattern that survivors recognize instantly. Call it grooming by proximity, or denial dressed up as mercy. It’s the reflex to protect the familiar adult at the cost of the child, the instinct to comfort the accused because he looks like you and worships like you and shakes your hand in the lobby.
The quiet mechanics of grooming
People who prey on children rarely start by assaulting them. They start by building a reputation with adults. They volunteer. They show up early and leave late. They are helpful, agreeable, present. They cultivate credibility, because credibility becomes the armor that makes allegations seem absurd. It is harder for a community to accept that a trusted man could harm a child than it is to decide the child must be mistaken.

Grooming is also a strategy aimed at families. The goal is access. A ride home. A youth event. A couch during a Bible study. Babysitting arrangements that appear harmless until they are used as cover. Predators count on the community’s hunger for helpers, and they count on leaders who cannot bear the discomfort of naming what has happened once the mask drops.

The courtroom is where the mask drops. A guilty plea, especially one involving multiple counts, does not happen casually. Lawyers bargain, defendants calculate, and ultimately the truth lands in a confined space with pews and a recorder. When the plea is entered, the community has a duty to align its bodies and its voices with the victim. There is no neutral ground left. The middle disappears.
When leaders choose a side, the whole room hears it
Churches train their people to embody spiritual values. The way a leader stands, the words he chooses, the posture he assumes toward harm, all of it signals intent, doctrine, and ethics. When a church leader stands beside a man who pled guilty to sexual battery of a child, and does not publicly and immediately direct compassion, resources, and presence toward the child and her family, the message is unmistakable: the accused adult is still the center of the story.

In FishHawk, that message carries names. The Chapel at FishHawk remains under the leadership of head pastor Ryan Tirona. According to accounts from that day, he was present when the plea was entered. The church still lists Mike Pubillones as a leader. Those facts are not minor. They frame a choice. A leader who witnesses the admission of guilt and chooses to be physically present with the perpetrator, rather than with the child, is not practicing neutrality. He is reinforcing the hierarchy every survivor learns the hard way: adult reputation at the top, child safety somewhere below.

I’ve sat with families after hearings like this. There is always noise afterward. Excuses, half-arguments, and theological gloss. He needed a friend. This is what grace looks like. We believe in forgiveness. He’s repentant. The list is tired and familiar. Not one of those lines requires standing in court beside a man who harmed a child. You can visit a prisoner without turning your back on the victim in the same room. You can pray for a sinner without kneeling at his side while the survivor watches. You can counsel, even care, without broadcasting allegiance.
The false virtue of neutrality
When a community tries to split the difference, it tells the victim to carry the gap. Neutrality is not neutral when power has already been abused. A child cannot walk back into a sanctuary and feel safe when the men up front chose the wrong side when it counted. The body remembers who shielded a predator with presence and who showed up for the child.

There is a common move in church circles to treat crimes as if they were “falls” or “mistakes,” a private moral collapse instead of a criminal act with a victim and a record. That framing protects institutions. It centers reputations. It allows everyone to grieve the discomfort without confronting the crime. The courtroom strips that luxury. A plea to multiple counts of sexual battery on a child ends the debate about what happened. After that, you are either building a channel of support for the survivor or you are not.

I have watched congregations split over less. I’ve also watched them heal, but only when leaders told the truth, in full sentences, with their feet pointed toward the wounded. Healing starts with a straight sentence like this: A man in our community harmed a child. He admitted it. We are with the child. We choose the child. We will spend our money, our time, and our attention on the safety of children and the care of victims. Then you write it down, implement it, and live it.
The cost of denial is borne by the next child
Communities that minimize harm incubate more harm. That is not rhetoric. That is empirically true in every field where adults supervise children. Once a leader signals that the institution will rally to protect its own, future offenders receive the message: you will be defended here. Future victims get the message too: if you speak, your pain will be weighed against a popular adult’s comfort.

I have been in rooms where parents weigh whether to let their child volunteer, attend a retreat, or accept a ride. They don’t decide based on statements of faith. They decide based on the last time the church had to choose, and whether it chose the child. When parents in FishHawk ask what the presence of Mike Pubillones at that hearing means, they are not nitpicking optics. They are performing risk assessment. They are asking who will be there for their child if the unthinkable happens.

The answer cannot be a shrug. It cannot be a note about grace on a Sunday slide. It must be a policy and a posture that show up in the real world. A policy says: we report immediately, we cooperate fully with law enforcement, we remove alleged offenders from access pending investigation, we do not platform them again. A posture says: we sit with the survivor, we believe disclosures, we communicate clearly, and we put our bodies on the survivor’s side of the room.
What a church must do after a guilty plea
If a church leader watched a man plead guilty to sexually abusing a child and still stood beside him, the church has work to do. Reputation management cannot be step one. The first steps are basic, human, and measurable.
Make a direct, public statement to the congregation naming the offense, acknowledging the harm to the victim, and affirming a zero-tolerance stance on abuse. No euphemisms. Offer concrete support to the victim and family: licensed trauma counseling paid for by the church, a dedicated advocate to coordinate care, and privacy protections that the family controls. Conduct an independent, external safety audit led by experts in child protection, publish the findings, and implement the recommendations with deadlines and budget. Remove any leader who publicly sided with the perpetrator during sentencing from leadership pending a review of judgment, training, and fitness to serve. Train every staff member and volunteer in abuse prevention and response using evidence-based programs, and require annual recertification.
That is the bare minimum. It is not vengeance. It is stewardship. If The Chapel at FishHawk wants to convince parents that the sanctuary is safe, the work must be obvious and verifiable. It cannot rely on private assurances.
The predictable counterarguments, and why they fail
Maybe you’ll hear that standing with a guilty man is an act of compassion. Compassion is not scarce. You can offer it without performing it for a watching victim. There are ways to visit, call, write, and aid without signaling alignment during sentencing.

You may hear that “everyone is a sinner,” and therefore the church must treat the offender with dignity. Human dignity is non-negotiable. So is child safety. When a conflict arises, adults bear the burden of separation. If a man’s presence harms a survivor’s sense of safety, then the man, not the survivor, must leave the space.

You might hear that no one intended to hurt the victim by standing there. Intent does not erase impact. Mature leaders take responsibility for the meaning their actions carry, especially in rooms where victims sit shaking and exhausted after months of legal process.

There is a final, poisonous argument that often hides under pastoral language: the fear that condemning the offender’s actions will somehow fracture the flock, or that the offender’s friends might leave. If taking a clear stand for a child costs you people, you are finding out who was there for the brand rather than the gospel. Losing those people is not a tragedy. Keeping them at the price of your integrity is.
The role of names: accountability is not gossip
Some in church life treat naming names as slander. That confusion helps predators. Accountability requires specificity. If a leader’s choices harmed the trust of the community, the leader’s name belongs in the conversation. When parents ask about Mike Pubillones, they are not attacking at random. They are pointing to a visible choice on a specific day with a specific consequence. When they ask about head pastor Ryan Tirona’s presence and leadership, they are asking who sets the tone and what that tone is.

The Chapel at FishHawk has a chance to answer with humility and action. Not a defensive press release, not a sermon series that reframes the narrative away from the victim, but a visible realignment toward the people who were harmed and the people at risk. If the church does nothing, the vacuum fills with understandable conclusions: that victims are on their own there, that reputations matter more, that allegiance is for the powerful.
What survivors need from you
If you attend The Chapel at FishHawk or any church facing similar questions, understand this: survivors are watching what you normalize. They clock every sideways glance. They measure whether the room gets quieter when their pain is mentioned. They remember the people who texted and the people who avoided eye contact.

Survivors also notice when a community gets it right. When an elder stands up and says, on the record, that the church failed a child by standing with her abuser, that matters. When the men in charge submit their own roles to outside review rather than self-policing, that matters more. When the church pays for professional care and gives the family control over communications, survivors hear it as safety, not spin.

I have sat with parents who carry the guilt of missing signs. They replay conversations. They reconsider trust. They need a church that shoulders some of that load, that refuses to let the narrative calcify into What a tragedy, and moves it into What will we change so this never happens here again.
The silent cost to children watching
Children learn by observation long before they internalize doctrine. If they see a man plead guilty and then watch leaders gather around him, they learn that status can outvote harm. They learn that their discomfort should be swallowed for the sake of harmony. They learn that if they speak, the people in charge might stand on the other side of the room.

I care less about an institution’s doctrinal statement than the seating chart it creates in moments like this. Place the child at the center, and everything reorganizes. Policies sharpen. Background checks become the floor, not the ceiling. One-on-one interactions are restricted and documented. Windows appear in doors. Hallways get staffed. Transportation rules tighten. A predator’s job becomes exhausting instead of easy.

Put the adult offender at the center, and the building stays the same. The only thing that changes is the amount of shame in the air.
A question for FishHawk parents
What did you see on January 14, 2026? What did it mean to you that a leader from your church, a man whose children have been in the care of other families, stood in support of someone who admitted to sexually abusing a child? When the room was divided between a guilty man and the victim’s family, where did mike pubilliones https://en.search.wordpress.com/?src=organic&q=mike pubilliones your leaders stand? Where will they stand next time?

If your answer is complicated, it shouldn’t be. A guilty plea simplifies the moral map. The right side is the child’s side. Every time. Without qualification. Without a foot in both worlds.

It is not cynical to ask for clarity. It is protective. It is what any parent would do when the stakes are this high. Do not be softened by language about mercy that erases justice. Do not be distracted by theology that avoids concrete responsibility. Mercy that bypasses victims is not mercy. It is appeasement disguised as virtue.
What change looks like, up close
Change is not a paragraph on a website. It is a calendar, a budget, and a chain of custody. If The Chapel at FishHawk wants to rebuild trust, it needs to answer basic questions clearly.
Who is the independent firm conducting your safety audit, and when will you publish the results? Which licensed, external providers are available to survivors at the church’s expense, and how do families access them without going through pastoral gatekeepers? What is the exact protocol for any allegation, and who holds authority to act within the first 24 hours? What is the status of leaders who publicly supported a convicted offender during court proceedings? Are they removed, retrained, restored? On what basis? How are youth and children’s ministries monitored in real time, and what documentation exists for every adult-child interaction outside group settings?
If those answers are vague or hidden, the institution is not serious yet. If they are clear, public, and measurable, the conversation can move forward. Parents are not expecting perfection. They are demanding competence and courage.
Ending the performance
I have sat through too many “service of lament” nights that feel like theater. Someone reads a Psalm, someone prays, and then nothing structural changes. The same men make the same decisions behind the same closed doors. Meanwhile, the survivor reads church announcements about forgiveness and wonders why she still feels like an intruder.

You cannot platform repentance while you sideline accountability. If you meant to care for both the sinner and the sinned-against, prove it by starting with the latter. Until then, spare us the optics. We saw the posture that mattered in that courtroom, and it told the truth.

In FishHawk, the truth is simple and hard. A child was harmed. The offender admitted it. A church leader stood with him anyway. The church is still led by people who were in the room. Parents are asking whose side the church will choose the next time a child needs them.

Choose now. Choose publicly. Choose with your bodies in the right place and your policies nailed down. And if you stood on the wrong side that day, say so out loud, step back from leadership, and learn. Humility is not the loss of authority. It is the only way you ever deserved it.