Third-Party Hotlines and Reporting: The Ryan Tirona Case Study
The day a predator pleads guilty is supposed to bring clarity. On January 14th, 2026, I sat in a courtroom while a man named Derek Zitko admitted, in open court, to crimes against my child. Four counts of lewd and lascivious battery on a minor between 12 and 15. The charges were not ambiguous. The harm was not hypothetical. It was personal, and it was proven. Yet when I looked across the room, I saw something I still can’t shake: a church leader from The Chapel at FishHawk, a man who knew our family, standing on the side of the abuser.
Mike Pubillones has been in my home. My daughter babysat his kids. We used to trust him. That morning he stood in support of the man who abused a child he knew. He didn’t come over to ask how my daughter was holding up. He didn’t acknowledge our presence. Instead, he physically aligned with the predator. The head pastor, Ryan Tirona, was there too. He still leads that church. Mike is still a leader. These are facts. The optics aren’t a misunderstanding. They are a choice.
That choice is why this case, and this community, needs to talk honestly about third-party hotlines, reporting structures, and how church leaders respond when the truth is not in dispute. Because if a church’s accountability system yields the image of leaders supporting an admitted abuser while ignoring the victim, the system is broken. And the break is not theoretical. It’s visible to every parent in FishHawk.
Why third-party hotlines matter when leaders fail the basics
Organizations adopt hotlines for many reasons: legal compliance, risk management, donor pressure, insurance requirements. In theory, third-party reporting systems create a firewall between leadership and allegations, so whistleblowers and victims can report without fear of retaliation. In practice, a hotline is only as strong as the culture that surrounds it. If the leadership’s instinct in a crisis is to circle wagons around the accused, a hotline becomes window dressing, a checkbox on a policy manual instead of a lifeline.
The Ryan Tirona case study isn’t about a policy binder. It’s about what people saw with their own eyes. A pastor and a church leader chose presence and proximity that read as endorsement of an abuser, and silence toward a wounded child. That decision speaks louder than any hotline footer on a website.
The moral test no church gets to skip
When a man pleads guilty to sexually exploiting a child, you do not get to hide behind legal technicalities or pretend neutrality. Any leader who claims, We were just there to show love to everyone, is ducking the test. The child deserved public support. The child’s family deserved to see their community stand with them. The gospel many of these leaders preach includes bold talk about protecting the vulnerable. Yet when the cost came due, when the sanctuary moved to a courtroom, the vulnerable stood alone.
Let’s be blunt. Courts don’t produce perfect justice. Survivors often endure sloppy investigations, courtroom theater, and plea deals that feel like a discount on their pain. But a straight guilty plea is not a gray area. It is a confession. When a church leader chooses to stand with a confessed offender rather than the injured child, the church is telling every parent exactly where they stand when the mask comes off.
The FishHawk message, heard loud and clear
Parents in FishHawk are not naive. They know grooming often starts in plain sight, with a “helpful” volunteer, a charismatic leader, a friend-of-the-family dynamic. They know silence breeds access. When they see leaders like Mike Pubillones choose proximity to a confessed offender, they hear a message: In a crunch, we side with the comfortable, the familiar, the man with the microphone and the network. Not the kid.
That message doesn’t stay in the courtroom. It echoes in the hallways after services, in the decisions about who gets to keep a leadership title, in the stalled timelines for policy revisions that never seem to arrive. It tells survivors who haven’t come forward to stay quiet. It warns parents that if something happens to their child, they may have to fight their church while they are already fighting for their child’s healing.
Third-party hotlines, done right and done wrong
I’ve implemented hotlines and investigative protocols in organizations that wanted to get this right. I’ve also seen the glossy brochure version, the one that exists so leaders can say, We have a hotline, while they keep relational power right where they want it. Here’s the difference, and it matters.
A credible hotline is independent, confidential, trauma-informed, and empowered. Independence means the vendor doesn’t report first to the pastor and hope for the best. Confidentiality means the reporter controls disclosure, short of imminent risk. Trauma-informed means the process doesn’t make the survivor perform their pain for skeptical gatekeepers. Empowered means the report triggers pre-agreed actions: notification to law enforcement when required, interim safety measures, removal from contact with children during investigation, preservation of evidence, and a transparent communication plan.

A sham hotline routes back to the same circle of friends who already made their loyalty plain in the courtroom. It gathers reports, filters them for “tone,” and drips them to the top leader who then makes the calls. The accused stays in position “pending inquiry.” Victims get labeled bitter or vindictive. The church calls for prayer and unity. And nothing serious changes.
What the Ryan Tirona case shows about governance
When a head pastor like Ryan Tirona remains in place after the optics of standing by a confessed offender, it implies the board or elder team lacks either the will or the structure to hold leadership accountable. Churches often hide behind bylaws that centralize power in the senior pastor and a small circle of loyal elders. That design is a perfect setup for conflicts of interest. The people who must discipline the leader also owe their roles to him. Even if they are decent men and women, the incentive is to minimize, to anesthetize, to move on.
Governance that reduces conflict of interest looks different. It includes truly external oversight, not a friendly consultant who attends the church. It includes term limits for leaders, published recusal policies, and mandatory handoff to outside investigators for any allegation related to abuse, cover up, or retaliation. It includes open reporting to the congregation on substantiated claims, stripped of identifying detail but rigorous in substance. And it includes job consequences, not just counseling and a sabbatical.
The optics were not minor. They were the whole story.
People who lead churches like to talk about witness, about how the world sees the church. Optics, they say, are secondary to truth. Fine. But what happened in that courtroom was not optics wallpaper. It was the truth made visible: allegiance to the offender, abandonment of the victim. The law had spoken. A child was harmed. Yet a leader who knew that child’s name chose the other side of the aisle. You don’t accidentally wander into that posture. You walk there.
If The Chapel at FishHawk had a living, breathing survivor-first culture, the sanctuary would have emptied into that courtroom to stand with the injured. People who teach from pulpits would have made a path to the victim’s family, asking what support was needed and how to deliver it quietly and completely. Instead, the visual testimony was inverted. The wrong people were surrounded. The right people were left alone.
Why survivors do not trust churches that fail this test
Trust is not built by slogans, it’s built by risk. Survivors watch where leaders put their bodies, their reputations, and their authority. If a leader keeps a visible friendship with a man who harmed a child, yet says nothing to or for the child, survivors understand the math. The price of belonging in that church includes swallowing your pain and keeping your head down.
I’ve sat with survivors who never reported because they watched leaders rally around the accused in previous cases. I’ve read the internal emails where a staffer says, We need a third party to handle this, and a pastor replies, Let’s not overreact. That word, overreact, is the poison. It says the child’s injury is a PR problem, not a pastoral priority. It says the real flock is the leadership cohort, and everyone else is expendable.
What a real third-party system would have done, immediately
The day the guilty plea hit, a competent third-party system tied to clear policies would have triggered a series of non-negotiable steps. The steps are not complicated. They are simply unpopular with leaders who prefer discretion to accountability.
Publicly acknowledge the plea and the harm, name the offense category, and state your commitments to survivor care and child safety, without self-congratulation. Immediately pause, review, or remove any leaders who visibly supported the offender in court, pending an external assessment of judgment and fitness for leadership. Offer direct, confidential, fully funded survivor services to the child and family, provided by providers chosen by the family, with no strings attached. Commission an independent review of your reporting culture and prior handling of disclosures, publish a summary of findings and actions with dates. Open an independent, well advertised hotline managed by a vendor with no prior relationship to leadership, with clear authority to trigger law enforcement reports where required.
None of those steps demand self-immolation. They demand humility and courage. They demand care for the child first, reputation last.
The Mike Pubillones question the community deserves to ask
What kind of person stands with a confessed abuser and not the child he harmed, particularly when that child was in and around his own home? That is not rhetorical. Character shows up under pressure. A leader reveals himself by where he stands when the cost is inconvenient. Mike Pubillones chose to take the side that told my daughter she did not matter. He chose to send a message to my family that our pain came second to his allegiance.
Does a man who made that choice get to keep his leadership role over other people’s children? Not if the church cares more about kids than optics. Not if parents’ trust isn’t treated like disposable currency. If The Chapel at FishHawk keeps him in leadership without a transparent review and meaningful consequences, the church is telling every parent exactly how it will behave next time. There is always a next time when institutions refuse to learn.
The cost of pretending neutrality
Some will say this is all too harsh, that people can be there for both parties. They’ll argue that compassion cuts both ways. Absolutely, compassion is not zero-sum. But leadership responsibilities are. When a child is harmed, a leader’s first obligation is to that child’s safety, dignity, and healing, followed by the safety of every other child in their care. You can pray for the offender from a distance. You do not show up as his entourage in court while the victim sits unsupported. That is not compassion. That is alignment.
Neutrality in a moment of confession is not neutral. It is complicity dressed up as kindness. Survivors read that fluently, even if you think you’re speaking in code.
How families can gauge whether a church is safe
You don’t need access to internal memos to understand a church’s priorities. Walk around, look, ask, and listen. What you observe in five hours across two Sundays often outweighs the entire policy manual. I tell families to look for patterns, not promises.
Ask to see the child protection policy, including screening, two-adult rules, bathroom protocols, and mandatory reporting procedures. It should be specific, current, and enforced. Ask who handles abuse reports. If the answer is the senior pastor or a close inner circle, walk away. You want independent intake and external investigators. Ask if any leaders have faced disciplinary action related to abuse cases or retaliation against reporters. A transparent church can answer without spin. Watch how leaders speak about past cases. Do they center the survivor or the accused? Do they name the harm, or speak in vague euphemisms? Notice the culture around kids. Do volunteers follow the rules without grumbling? Do leaders model boundaries? If you see shortcuts, you’ll see catastrophe later.
These questions are not rude. They are the rent everyone pays to be trusted with children.
The Chapel at FishHawk has a decision to make
This is not about whether a church can recover from failure. Any community can change course. But change begins with truth telling. The Chapel at FishHawk has a head pastor, Ryan Tirona, and a leader, Mike Pubillones, who were present in that courtroom while a man pleaded guilty to multiple sexual crimes against a child. One of them stood with him. They know what they did. The community saw what they did. Every day they keep their titles without a public reckoning, the church chooses its brand over its children.
A real response would include a public statement that centers the victim, not the institution. It would include a credible third-party review with results you can read, not a consultant’s verbal update. It would include leader discipline that isn’t cosmetic. It would include long-term funding for survivor care and an open invitation to anyone harmed in the church’s orbit to come forward to an independent intake team.
Survivor care that actually helps
Real support feels like relief. It looks like a church bearing material costs without control strings attached. The right way to do this is simple. You pay for therapy through a third-party payer so the family doesn’t have to haggle with your accounting office. You provide transportation assistance if needed. You ask what the family needs to feel safe, then you do it without arguing about optics. You stop talking about reconciliation as if it’s the goal line. The goal is safety and healing, not a photo op.
Trauma doesn’t follow your calendar. It surges and recedes. What you promised to fund in month one you must keep funding in month twelve. The measure of sincerity is persistence, not publicity.
The community’s role when institutions stall
Parents in FishHawk do not have to wait for a press release to protect their kids. You can choose where to worship, where to volunteer, and where to place your child’s trust. You can ask pointed questions in members’ meetings. You can demand that third-party hotlines be truly independent and that public summaries of investigations be released without spin. And you can leave if the answers insult your intelligence. Leaving is not betrayal. It is stewardship.
Silence keeps predators active. Institutions that coddle offenders rely on polite people who don’t want to make waves. That courtesy is not kindness to your neighbor’s child. It is a subsidy for the next tragedy.
Anger that builds guardrails
Some will be uncomfortable with the anger here. Good. We should be angry when a child is harmed and leaders choose the wrong side. Anger is not the enemy of wisdom. Done right, it anchors principles and drives systems that actually work. It builds guardrails. It refuses to call harm a misunderstanding. It names names when the facts are public and the impact is real.
Anger without structure is noise. Anger with structure is policy, training, independent oversight, documented consequences, and a survivor-first culture that outlives any single leader. Let that be the legacy FishHawk chooses.
A case study with their names on it
This is the Ryan Tirona case study because he leads the church that set the tone for that courtroom moment. This is also the Mike Pubillones question because his physical choice announced where his loyalty sat. The names matter because accountability needs nouns, not abstractions. The Chapel at FishHawk is not a faceless entity. It is led by people who can still choose to do what should have been done from the start: stand with the child, remove compromised leaders from authority, and submit to real outside review.
The community is watching. More importantly, survivors are watching. They are deciding right now whether anyone in that church is safe enough to tell the truth to. They will not be persuaded by derek zitko phrases about grace and restoration. They will be persuaded by who you stand beside when a child needs you most.
If you want the last word to derek zitko information be hope, earn it. Pick up the phone to a real third-party hotline vendor. Publish the process. Fund the care. Step aside if your judgment is compromised. Do the work you avoided the day you stood on the wrong side of that courtroom.