Child porn distributor, ex-SC Rep. RJ May wants short prison stint, then work on farm
Former S.C. lawmaker and convicted child porn distributor state Rep. RJ May III wants as short a prison sentence as possible followed by strict supervised release on an isolated family farm in Virginia when he leaves prison.
The 26-page filing in federal court Monday afternoon by lawyers for May, 39, contained detailed descriptions about how much he says he has suffered already by his arrest and guilty plea on child porn distributing offenses and a pledge to go work on a rural family farm at an undisclosed location in Virginia after he gets out of prison. It also describes a childhood riven by abuse.
May is due to be sentenced at 10 a.m. Wednesday, Jan. 14, by U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie at the federal courthouse near downtown Columbia. In September, he pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing child pornography on the internet.
“Since facing these offenses, RJ has lost everything he cares about. He will not raise his children; his divorce will soon be finalized; he resigned from his position as a state representative and will likely never again hold a public office; he is now a convicted felon; and he will have to register as a sex offender,” the filing said.
The filing says that May will not return to South Carolina when he leaves prison. “Upon his release, he will reside on the family farm in rural Virginia. The land’s only human occupants are his parents. The property has no internet access or cable television. There are no schools, daycares, malls, parks, arcades, movie theaters, or playgrounds for miles.”
The filing also alleges that long prison sentences for child porn offenses have been found by studies as being overly harsh on offenders, especially those like May who have not actually molested children but solely trafficked in images.
May’s attorneys, public defenders Jenny Smith and Jeremy Thompson, did not cite a number of years in prison they want Currie to give May. Instead, they asked for a sentence “substantially below the recommended guideline range.” Guidelines call for a minimum sentence of about 17 years for someone like May, who has no criminal record but who has pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing child porn. In effect, the attorneys are asking for a sentence far less than 17 years.
Even a 17-year sentence contrast markedly with the hard-line request last week by federal prosecutors asking Judge Currie to give May the maximum sentence allowed by law for one count of distributing child porn — 20 years in prison followed by lifetime supervision.
“May operated an abusive and degrading child pornography distribution scheme that harmed and continues to harm hundreds of children. He sought out minors being sexually abused by their parents, and when he found those files, he sent them to others,” federal prosecutors Elliott Daniels, Scott Matthews and Dean Secor wrote in a 32-page filing Friday.
“Victims have told the Court that the harm is lasting. May did all this while voting to criminalize and severely punish child pornography distribution as a sitting member of the South Carolina House of Representatives,” the federal prosecutor filing said.
In his filing, May in a letter to the court expressed what his lawyers called “his deep and genuine remorse over his actions.”
“My viewing and sharing of CSAM will forever haunt me despite it not reflecting who I was, who I am, or who I will be,” May wrote.
May’s lawyers told the judge that the sooner May is released from prison, the sooner he will be able to make restitution payments to victims of his distributing videos of child victims of adult perversions.
Prosecutors wrote that May owes $73,000 to various identified children in the images he distributed. However, most of the children in May’s videos have not been identified.