2 of SC’s most notorious sex criminals — including ex Rep. RJ May — now in prison

It took a while, but two of South Carolina’s most notorious sex criminals in recent years are now securely away from society in prisons.

Former state Rep. R.J. May III, 39, who was sentenced to 17.5 years in prison in federal court for distributing child sex material on the internet, is in federal prison in Lewisburg, Pa., a rural small town in the center of the state, according to the Bureau of Prisons internet site.

The prison is about 600 miles, or a 10-hour drive, from Columbia, where May once prowled the State House as firebrand Republican devoted to President Donald Trump and limited government. May once represented parts of Lexington County.

The Lewisburg federal prison is a medium security facility for men. It holds 1,135 inmates in an institution and an adjoining prison camp.

May ‘s 17.5-year sentence by U.S. Judge Cameron McGowan Currie was much higher than is normally given to those convicted of similar sex crimes.

Currie said at May’s sentencing hearing that the images of young children May distributed on the internet were “the worst” she’d ever seen in her 32-year career as a judge. They contained images of incest, rape, force, pain and humiliation committed against toddlers, not by May, but by others, she said. The average sentence in federal child porn cases is 12 and a half years, she said.

Niether of May’s trial attorneys, federal public defenders Jenny Smith and Jeremy Thompson, responded to requests for comment.

U.S. Attorney Brian Stirling said, “May is right where he belongs for his actions.

“I’m proud of the work our federal partners and the state, and our federal prosecutors, did to put him away for a long time.”

Riviere in state prison

The other sex criminal is Rhett “Tiger” Riviere, 72, a former millionaire from Aiken, who in the last week reported to the S.C. Department of Corrections to begin serving a three-year prison term for three charges of voyeurism.

While not as notorious as May, Riviere’s illegal actions — for years he secretly used hidden cameras to video adults and youths in stages of undress and in intimate actions at his rental units — were just as dastardly on some levels as May’s crimes. Some of his rental units were Airbnbs.

Riviere is now at Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Center, just outside downtown Columbia, where he is being evaluated for assignment to another prison.

Riviere “didn’t just break the law over those decades, he invaded people’s lives. He violated something sacred. He took the one thing from somebody that you should feel safe — where you should feel safe,” Deborah Barbier, a Columbia attorney, told state circuit court Judge Courtney Clyburn Pope at his Feb. 17 sentencing.

“You should feel safe where you lay your head on your pillow at night. That’s what you should feel safe in. He stole that from them. He stole their sense of security,” said Barbier, according to a transcript of the hearing. “The harm here is profound, and it’s permanent.”

Evidence in the case against Riviere said he had for some 20 years secretly video recorded guests at his rental units and made more than 20,000 videos and photographs for his own sexual gratification, Barbier said.

At the Feb. 17 hearing, Riviere apologized for his actions.

Attorney Joe McCulloch, who represented Riviere with Columbia attorney Jim Griffin, declined comment.

Prison spokeswoman Christi Shain said Riviere arrived at Kirkland on Wednesday. All male inmates coming into prison are processed at Kirkland, she said in an email. “As a part of the intake process, like all inmates he will undergo medical tests, mental health and education assessments, and SCDC will gather other additional background information,” Shain said. “Next, the SCDC inmate classification system will follow the same process it follows for all inmates: evaluate the results of tests, assessments and screenings administered to him, taking into account his crime and sentence, and use all of this information to assign the inmate a specific custody level and prison,” Shain said. This evaluation process takes about 45 days.