Hunter Rivera Allegations Demand Justice, Not Vultures

I do not feel like I can write my normal Scott Sheet stuff.

I do not feel like I can send a normal email, make a normal joke, ask people to read something I wrote, or pretend this is just another ugly headline passing through the grinder.

I have to address this first.

By now, many of you have seen the Denver Gazette report (and dozens of other outlets, too) that Hunter Rivera, chairman of the Weld County Republican Party, was arrested by the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office in a sting operation involving allegations that he attempted to pay for sex with a child. The report says he faces four felony charges, and it also correctly notes that defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

That last sentence matters. The legal process must proceed. The facts must be fully established. Justice must be served.

But let me be equally clear: the allegations are disgusting, depraved, sickening, and horrifying. Conduct of this nature, or even charges of this gravity, is utterly incompatible with continued leadership in public life or the Republican Party. There can be no defense. No excuse. No political shelter. No soft language dipped in warm consultant soup.

Children are not campaign props. They are not talking points. They are not bargaining chips. They are not merchandise. Any person who preys on children deserves punishment to the fullest extent of the law.

I helped draft statements from Weld County Republican elected leaders and the Weld County Republican Party calling for Hunter’s immediate resignation and removal as chair. I stand by every word. We stand with children, families, and law enforcement. We are grateful to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, its investigators, and every officer involved in the ugly, necessary work of protecting children from sexual exploitation.

That part is not complicated.

The rest is.

I knew Hunter. I worked with Hunter. I considered Hunter a friend. That is not easy to type.

To us, Hunter was a bright young man who wanted to be involved in self-government. He showed up. He worked. He wanted to be part of the process. And that is exactly what I preach all the time. I tell people to get involved. I tell young people to stop yelling at the country from behind a screen and go serve. Knock doors. Attend meetings. Learn the process. Help govern.

Hunter did that.

And now this.

No one knew. I need people to understand that.

No one.

Not the party officers. Not the elected officials. Not the volunteers. Not the people who worked with him in county politics, state politics, Young Republicans, campaigns, meetings, events, and all the rest of it. No one had the slightest inkling that anything like this was happening.

That does not make the shock easier. It makes it worse.

I have asked myself the questions everyone asks when evil shows up wearing a familiar face. Why didn’t I see it? Could I have prayed harder? Could I have checked on him more? Did my own witness fail to speak loudly enough?

Those are real questions. I am not dressing them up for the audience. I spent a lot of time around him. I believe in accountability. I believe in moral responsibility. I believe Christians do not get to outsource their witness to a bumper sticker and a Sunday attendance record.

But I also know this: Hunter’s alleged choices are his responsibility. Not mine. Not the Republican Party’s. Not every person who ever stood next to him in a picture. Not every candidate he helped. Not every leader who encouraged him.

And that brings me to the part that has made me almost as angry as the headline itself.

The political scavengers showed up immediately.

Some Democrats are already doing what Democrats too often do when a Republican is accused of something vile: trying to smear everyone within camera range. “Of course,” they say. Then comes the Trump garbage, the pedophile smear, the lazy guilt-by-association routine, the little moral performance they rehearse every time they think tragedy can be turned into campaign content.

Knock it off.

Some Republicans are doing their own version, posting photos of Hunter standing with primary opponents as if a picture is evidence of moral guilt.

Knock that off, too.

There are plenty of photos of Hunter with me. Plenty. Go find them if it makes you somehow feel self-righteous. We worked together a lot. That does not mean I am a pedophile. It means politics has too many cameras and too many cowards willing to misuse them.

A photograph is not evidence of guilt. It is evidence that someone attended the same event before the world fell apart.

This kind of rudimentary thinking is childish and disgusting. It is opportunism at the expense of children, families, law enforcement, the accused’s family, and everyone who has been blindsided by something they did not know and could not have imagined.

If your first instinct in a moment like this is to crop a photo, write a smirking caption, and damage someone else for political gain, you are not showing moral courage. You are showing that your soul has been replaced by a campaign intern with Canva.

This is bigger than politics.

I know that sounds like something people say when politics becomes inconvenient. I do not mean it that way.

There is a political element here because Hunter held a political position. The party had to act. Leaders had to speak. The chairmanship had to be addressed immediately. Public trust matters, and charges involving children require a clear public response.

But if all you can see here is politics, you are being too simple.

This is good versus evil.

I have watched division inch its way into Weld County. I have watched it show up in fights over Cascadia, city councils, county commissioner races, state House races, state Senate races, party fights, and local campaigns. I have watched dishonesty and factional poison slowly creep into a place where it once had no quarter.

Now it is here. Fully.

The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He does it with lies. He does it with division. He does it with mistrust. He does it with pride. He does it by finding cracks in families, churches, parties, friendships, institutions, and communities, then prying them open with a crowbar.

Weld County has cracks. Colorado has cracks. America has cracks. This moment exposed more than one.

It exposed alleged depravity. It exposed the fragility of trust. It exposed how little we really know about what people carry in secret. It exposed how fast political people will turn pain into ammunition. It exposed how quickly a community can move from grief to accusation to performance.

And it exposed something in me, too.

In the last two days, I watched politicians, including me, run from this man.

Part of that was necessary. We had to run from the alleged actions. We had to condemn them sternly. We had to make clear that charges of this gravity are incompatible with leadership. That was not optional. It was right.

But as a Christian, I am also torn.

How far can I run from a man before I stop modeling the forgiveness and redemption I claim is available in Jesus Christ?

That question does not soften the law. It does not lighten punishment. It does not turn evil into therapy-speak. It does not make children less important. It does not make victims disappear behind a fog machine of religious sentiment.

Forgiveness is not leniency.

Redemption is not exemption.

Grace is not a plea bargain.

If these allegations are proven, Hunter needs to be punished to the fullest extent of the law. He needs to make restitution to any victims and to society. He needs serious mental health treatment. He needs to carry the consequences of his actions for the rest of his life. There should be consequences. Serious ones.

And he needs Jesus Christ.

So do I.

So do you.

So does this county, this state, and this nation.

We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. That does not mean all sins are equal in earthly consequence. They are not. Some sins destroy innocence. Some sins demand prison. Some sins break trust in ways that never fully heal on this side of eternity.

But the Christian faith does not teach that redemption is reserved for respectable sinners with tidy reputations and acceptable failures. If redemption is only for people who embarrass us in manageable ways, it is not redemption.

Hunter needs to beg God for forgiveness. He needs to seek God’s mercy and grace. He needs justice, punishment, treatment, repentance, restitution, and, God willing, redemption.

I rebuke anyone who thinks saying that means I am being light on him. I am not. I want justice to be swift. I want children protected. I want every fact exposed. I want the courts to do their work. I want law enforcement backed. I want consequences.

But I will not pretend the Gospel stops at the jailhouse door because the sin is too ugly for my comfort.

That is not Christianity. That is public relations with a hymnal.

We need to pray harder.

For our leaders. For our friends. For our families. For the people we think are fine because they look fine. For the people carrying secret sin. For the victims who need protection and healing. For law enforcement officers who have to wade into the sewer to protect children. For judges and prosecutors and investigators. For Hunter’s family, who did not choose this nightmare. And yes, for Hunter, that justice would be swift and repentance real.

Scripture says it plainly:

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”

That is 2 Chronicles 7:14.

Not humble themselves and post harder. Not humble themselves and crop better photos. Not humble themselves and win the next primary.

Humble themselves. Pray. Seek God’s face. Turn from wicked ways.

Then healing.

We need that in Weld County. We need that in Colorado. We need that in America.

I am angry. I am heartbroken. I am confused. I am disgusted. I am prayerful. I am probably all of those things at the same time because life is not a campaign mailer, and grief does not fit neatly into a Facebook post.

But I know where I stand.

I stand with children. I stand with families. I stand with law enforcement. I stand for the rule of law and full accountability.

I stand against political vultures using this horror to smear people who did not know, could not have known, and are now trying to process betrayal in real time.

And I stand on the belief that justice and redemption are not enemies.

Evil must be confronted. Sin must be confessed. Crimes must be punished. Victims must be protected. Communities must repent. And broken people, even people broken by their own wicked choices, must be told the truth:

There is justice.

There are consequences.

And there is still a Savior.