Columbia County Man Indicted on Federal Charge of Receiving Child Pornography Over the Internet

JACKSONVILLE, FL—Acting United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announced today that John George Sessine (53, Lake City) has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Jacksonville on child pornography charges. Sessine is charged with three counts of receiving child pornography. On each of the receipt counts, he faces a mandatory minimum of not less than five years and up to 20 years in prison. Sessine was taken into federal custody on July 29, 2013, and is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service. His arraignment and detention hearing is scheduled for August 1, 2013, at 2:30 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel B. Toomey at the U.S. Courthouse in Jacksonville.

According to the indictment, Sessine did knowingly receive visual depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct over the Internet on three separate occasions. An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc.