Judge slams ex-SC Rep. RJ May with prison term on child porn distribution charges

Former S.C. state Rep. RJ May III, once known for his hard-right conservative views was sentenced Wednesday to 17.5 years in prison for distributing child pornography on the internet.

The sentence by U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie was announced at the end of a somber, unusually long two and a half hour hearing in a crowded courtroom on the third floor of the federal courthouse near downtown Columbia.

In pronouncing May’s sentence, the judge said the videos of child pornography she had viewed 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, she said. The average sentence in federal child porn cases is 12 and a half years, she said.

May was especially drawn to videos about toddlers being sexually abused by adults in the most degrading and vile ways, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Currie also said no matter how long of a sentence she imposed, the suffering of the victims “will last a lifetime,” or longer than any sentence May would serve.

Currie also took note of May’s hypocrisy, pointing out he claimed to be an advocate for children “by sponsoring bills in the legislature, but he was their abuser.”

At hearing’s end, Currie said, “Good luck to you, Mr. May.”

“Thank you, your honor,” May said.

Then May, 39, still stout but thinner than his days in the State House and with a grown out beard, dressed in a jail orange-and-white striped jumpsuit and manacled hand and foot by chains and spoke briefly with his father and sister. He was then led from the courtroom by two burly U.S. Marshals.

He will be sent to an as-yet undesignated federal prison.

He will also be under a 20-year supervised release once he gets out of prison, meaning he will be in his 70s before he is no longer monitored by federal authorities. He also must pay $58,500 in restitution to eight victims who have been identified as children on child porn videos he distributed. He will also receive a lifelong designation as a sex offender, which in all likelihood will sharply limit his contact with children.

During May’s 16-minute remarks in court Wednesday, he spoke about wanting to start a nonprofit organization after his release to work toward eliminating child sexual abuse material. About 10 minutes into his remarks he began speaking through tears.

“I think God wants me to direct my time and talent to the eradication of child sex abuse material,” he told the judge. “I will do everything I can to make this right.”

May apologized to the victims in the videos he distributed on the internet.+ He said he was sorry and, “I make no excuses. I am guilty of my crime, and I take full responsibility for it.”

Years ago, when his marriage started to fail, he fell into depression and was “too weak” to seek help for his mental health issues, he told the judge.

He recalled a traumatic childhood, being physically abused by a now-dead alcoholic mother and witnessing murders.

He admitted becoming a “slave” to his sex addition and living “a double life.”

May said after his house was raided, he started going to therapy. Recently, he has started church-based therapy, “nailing to a cross one’s addiction.”

“I will do everything. I promise and pledge to do all I can to fulfill my obligations,” he said referring to court-ordered restitution.

“I don’t expect forgiveness,” May added. He also said, “It took me 40 years to build a life I was proud of, and I destroyed it in an instant.”

The hearing ended around 12:35 pm. Across town, May’s old workplace — the 124-member S.C. House of Representatives where he once prowled the aisles and hobnobbed with power brokers — was set to swing into session at 2 p.m.

Among those in attendance for the sentencing were York County state Reps. Heath Sessions, David Martin and Brandon Guffey, whose 17-year-old son, Gavin, died by suicide following a sextortion case that involved child sexual abuse materials.

Guffey pushed for the successful passage of Gavin’s Law in South Carolina. The law makes sextortion a felony.

After Guffey returned to the State House on Wednesday after the sentencing hearing, he wore a tie that said “Punish Pedos.”

“I think he should have gotten life,” Guffey said. “I don’t believe in forgiveness on my end.”

Prosecutors in their sentencing memo listed bills May supported to combat child pornography and to protect children — including Gavin’s law.

“To have Gavin’s name being brought up, and that discussion that should have the impact of some of the things you’re doing. His is far more sadistic,” Guffey said.

Federal prosecutors had wanted the legal maximum sentence of 20 years for one count of distributing child pornography, also called child sex abuse material, on the internet. They noted in a legal filing that May is also a tax dodger, having failed to pay state income taxes for his consulting business, Ivory Tusk Consulting, for several years, “despite bringing in more than $600,000.”

May himself, in a seven-page letter to the judge filed Monday, had argued for a five-year sentence, to be “followed by a significant period of home confinement.” May also said that some time in the future, he wants to tell pedophiles like himself about his “addiction” to child porn in hopes of getting them to reform themselves.

“Whether through indifference or want of education, I was ignorant to the continuing harms posed by child sex abuse material. If I am honest with myself and the Court, I had addiction to screens and pornography. It was more serious than I thought and led to a horrible place I never imagined it would go. For that, I am deeply sorry,” May wrote in his letter.

May’s public defender attorneys, Jenny Smith and Jeremy Thompson, had argued in a court filing for an unspecified light sentence, urging the judge to consider allowing May to serve out much of his sentence on a remote Virginia farm owned by his father, a place where they asserted May would be under monitoring by law enforcement and be away from children and internet connections.

On Wednesday, Smith also told the judge that an eight-year sentence would be appropriate for May.

Plea for leniency

May attorney Smith told the judge that her client was the unluckiest of criminals.

In a drug or financial corruption case, for example, family and friends will often stand by the offender and wait for him to get out of prison. “There is a future waiting for these (men),” she said.

Addictive behavior is understood for drug or gambling afflictions that cause people to commit crimes, but sex addiction with children is “something so dark we don’t want to talk about it, we don’t want to read about it,” Smith told the judge.

In May’s case, his sex drive increased in recent years when a doctor prescribed testosterone, Smith said.

“This is not an excuse for his conduct,” Smith said. “He has extreme remorse ... He has accepted responsibility.”

She acknowledged, “It’s fair to say he was leading a double life.” But in a way he didn’t abuse his position, because he didn’t use his office to further a crime, she said.

Smith implied that May was already substantially punished, having lost his career, his family and his income. “He can’t go home again ... all we want is a shot at redemption. He lost everything that gave meaning to his life,” she said.

Tough sentence urged

May’s district in Lexington County encompassed about 41,000 citizens who trusted him to enact laws protecting children, prosecutor Elliott Daniels told the judge.

“He was in a unique position to understand the harm he was doing,” Daniels said. “Mr. May, of all people, knew better.”

May had a “unique fixation on toddlers” and incest, and the content of the videos is as “extreme and depraved as it gets,” Daniels said. “We don’t see content worse than that.”

To show how May’s distribution of child sex videos harmed actual people, Daniels quoted from a victim in one of May’s videos who is now an adult. The victim, whom May called Pia, said she was abused from age three to six and groomed by an abuser to think sex with adults was normal, Daniels said.

Today, Pia is still traumatized by what happened to her, Daniels said.

Moreover, May didn’t just view these videos by himself, he sent them out to dozens of other people in a social media site. “This is not a passive case of possession,” Daniels said. “He is a major hub of distribution.”

In a five-day period in the Spring 2024, May sent videos 479 times to some 100 different people in 18 states and six countries on three continents, Daniels said.

To give a light sentence that the defense and May are asking for “sends the exact wrong message,” Daniels told the judge.

May’s family speaks

May’s father, Robert May, who appeared to be in his early 60s, asked for a lenient sentence but said he was shocked at the crime his son has pleaded guilty to.

“The horrific crime he committed is so hard for me to wrap my mind around it,” he said. “I can’t believe what he has done to himself.”

The father added, “He is suffering, and his suffering has just begun.”

May’s younger sister, Megan, spoke saying, “RJ I love you. You’ve been a great big brother to me.”

She added that the federal investigators were an “instrument of God to stop my brother’s actions.”

“My experience with RJ has been drastically different than what you have heard today,” Megan May told judge Currie.

During their childhood and after, her brother was always loving, supportive and protective, she said.

May’s sentence Wednesday was the final act in the life of a General Assembly lawmaker who began a rise to statewide prominence in 2020 when he was elected to a seat in Lexington County’s House District 88, which includes parts of West Columbia, Gaston, Red Bank and Lexington.

Once in the Legislature, May became the driving force behind the creation of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-line conservative Republicans who viewed compromise as a weakness.

But in August 2024, federal law enforcement officials from Homeland Security Investigations executed a search warrant on his house. Agents seized 35 electronic devices including cell phones, flash drives and computers from his West Columbia house.

The investigation into May had begun in early 2024 after a social media company Kik reported questionable videos to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The videos led investigators to May.

Ten months after the raid, in June 2025, a federal grand jury indicted May on multiple counts of distributing child pornography. For months May maintained his innocence and refused to resign his post in the General Assembly. He finally resigned in August.

May’s distribution of child pornography came despite May’s voting for bills to protect child from sex and other forms of abuse, prosecutors noted.

“May of all people knew better. He was in a unique position to understand the harm and the consequences he would face, yet he still chose to distribute child pornography. Hundreds of times over. May’s breach carries a particular risk of undermining confidence in public institutions,” prosecutors wrote.

The last filing in court records in May’s case came as a letter Tuesday from a May friend, state Rep. Ryan McCabe Jr., a Lexington County lawyer and member of the Freedom Caucus.

“When Mr. May was accused, it was unfathomable to me based on what I have personally seen and heard over the more than five years that I have known him. I have never heard him say anything sexually inappropriate or make crude jokes,” McCabe wrote to Judge Currie.

“I respectfully ask the Court to consider a sentence that, consistent with the Court’s judgment and the purposes of sentencing, allows (May’s children) to have some relationship with their father while they are still young,” McCabe wrote.

Prosecutors on the case are Daniels, Scott Matthews and Dean Secor.

Agencies in involved in May’s case included the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Homeland Security Investigations, the S.C. Attorney General’s child sex crimes task force and the Lexington County sheriff’s office.

At some point, a government undercover agent penetrated an internet group of child sex predators that included May, according to a federal court filing in May’s case.

In a press conference after the hearing, First Assistant U.S. Attorney for South Carolina Lance Crick told reporters that May “betrayed a position of public trust.

“He was elected to make a difference in our community, elected to uphold the laws of our land. Instead, he represents the worst of us.”

This story was originally published January 14, 2026 at 12:32 PM.