SC’s RJ May didn’t file taxes for 3 years, House ethics investigation finds
Former state Rep. RJ May didn’t file to pay state income taxes in the last three years, the House Ethics Committee investigator said Tuesday.
May, who resigned in August and pleaded guilty in September in federal court to five counts of distributing child pornography, was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for conduct unbecoming a member. The ethics complaint filed by House Majority Leader Davey Hiott was a move intended to start the process of expelling May from the House.
The committee formally reprimanded May at its hearing Tuesday.
“Essentially, I believe we can close the chapter as to Mr. May,” said state Rep. Jay Jordan, the chairman of the House Ethics Committee.
The investigation also included looking into the activities of May and his political consulting business Ivory Tusk, which worked to elect hard-line conservative candidates.
That ethics committee investigation included requests for information from other entities including the Department of Revenue, which has no records of May or Ivory Tusk filing tax returns in 2022, 2023 and 2024, said Mark Moore, an attorney with Maynard Nexsen, a firm hired by the ethics committee to conduct the investigation.
“I think the conclusion is easy to draw there, and you don’t need me to draw,” Moore said. “(There’s) no evidence of payments of any state income taxes by Mr. May for those three years, and no evidence of any tax filings.”
Moore was in regular contact with members of the House
May, who is being held at the Edgefield County Detention Center pending sentencing, in jailhouse discussions made public because they were recorded, said some clients owed him money.
As part of the investigation, attorneys for Maynard Nexsen also sought to speak to five House members, all members of the hard-line conservative S.C. House Freedom Caucus, which May helped create. Two of them, state Reps. Ryan McCabe and Joe White, were “fully cooperative,” Moore said.
Three of them, state Reps. Stephen Frank, Jay Kilmartin and Jordan Pace did not cooperate, Moore said.
Frank initially agreed to speak to investigators, but then reversed course and refused to set up a meeting. Kilmartin never agreed to a meeting. Pace, who also is the Freedom Caucus chairman, scheduled a meeting and then didn’t show up, Moore said Tuesday.
Pace, the Berkeley County representative, then wrote a letter to House Speaker Murrell Smith calling for a special session to expel May.
In October, the three also were subpoenaed to be deposed, but an attorney advised the three to only answer questions from members of the Ethics Committee, rather than lawyers, Moore said.
“We were happy to answer questions posed by the committee,” Pace said in an interview Tuesday evening.
Pace said he did not initially respond to requests to be interviewed by Maynard Nexsen because House ethics staff would not confirm the firm was hired for the investigation. He also said he did not receive an answer immediately on whether he could have an attorney represent him pro bono.
“The whole time we’re happy to cooperate with the investigation with May and the awful heinous stuff this guy, we’ve come to find out, did,” Pace said. “Why are we not focusing entirely on that?”
After an initial agreement for the three to produce documents, those records were not delivered in full and lawyers advised them not to answer any questions from investigators, Moore said.
“The vast majority of people that we contacted agreed to cooperate fully, and when I say they agreed to cooperate fully, they (not) only sat down for interviews ... they voluntarily produced their campaign records,” Moore said.
The House GOP Caucus has been at odds with the Freedom Caucus over tactics used by the hard-line conservative members. Allies of the Freedom Caucus have been critical of the House Ethics Committee investigation, believing it was being used to target the Freedom Caucus politically.
Moore has a record of donating to members of the Legislature, including Speaker Smith and Ethics Committee Chairman Jordan.
Jordan denied a political motivation against the Freedom Caucus.
“Today’s presentation, I think, I hope, quells that question to anyone in the general public, in that, it was not as if only members of that particular entity were sought to discuss, and various members of that entity cooperated,” Jordan told reporters after the hearing. “I think to just say there’s a targeting operation here is incredibly incorrect and that accusation is inappropriate.”
As part of Tuesday’s hearing, the Ethics Committee referred any matters that appeared to have violated laws outside its jurisdiction to the appropriate state regulatory agency. The committee also referred one complaint with six counts and one complaint with a single count to the State Ethics Commission for possible violations of the Ethics Act.
Jordan would not disclose who was being referred for the possible violations.
“To say this has been a difficult matter ... that’s a tremendous understatement. It’s a difficult, sad issue that we’ve had to go through this process,” Jordan said while thanking ethics committee staff when reviewing this matter.
This story was originally published October 15, 2025 at 5:30 AM.
