John Sesnick, 60 found with child, 12 and altered birth certificate

[Sister]

Last update I can find is July 2009

Man posing as Katrina victim sentenced to halfway house
PAUL PINKHAM
The Times-Union

Published Tuesday, July 14, 2009
A man found living with his daughter in a St. Augustine parking lot was sentenced Monday to a halfway house after pleading guilty to defrauding the government by posing as a Hurricane Katrina victim.

John M. Sesnick, 61, of Ponte Vedra Beach, was sentenced to the five months he's already spent in jail plus 25 days to allow time for a bed to open up in a federal halfway house, U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard said. She also ordered him to undergo continued mental-health treatment and pay $21,600 in restitution to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He must pay his way at the halfway house.

Howard warned him that any contact with his daughter, in violation of a St. Johns County family court order, would also violate his probation in the fraud case and send him to prison.
The sentence was within the nonbinding federal sentencing guideline range of four to 10 months.

St. Johns deputies found Sesnick and the 12-year-old girl in February living in the Wal-Mart parking lot in a filthy van with two dogs, piles of trash, dirty laundry and rotting food. She is now with Sesnick's brother in Ponte Vedra Beach, and a family court judge in St. Augustine has temporarily prohibited contact from her father.

Sesnick, a military veteran with no prior criminal record, appeared more lucid in court Monday than in previous appearances before he was stabilized with medication.

"I've raised my daughter since about 7 months old," Sesnick told Howard. "I made some serious mistakes, and I apologize."

Howard acknowledged he did a credible job raising the girl until his mental health problems started. She told him she fashioned his sentence to give him tools to again become a productive member of society.

"It doesn't benefit anyone for you to be in jail," she said. "What benefits you and the taxpayers and the people who didn't get the money to which they're entitled is to get you ... stabilized and working."

http://staugustine.com/stories/071409/news_1742717.shtml

Nut, thank you for posting this.  I hope this man has stayed on his medication and has gotten his life back on track.  I hope his daughter is doing well also.