Former SC lawmaker to plead guilty to distributing child sex abuse material

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WCSC/WIS) - A former South Carolina lawmaker charged with nearly a dozen counts of distributing child sex abuse material will plead guilty.

Former state Rep. RJ May has agreed to plead guilty to five federal counts of distributing child sex abuse material, according to court documents filed Friday. He was facing 10 counts of the charge, but federal prosecutors will drop the other five in exchange for his plea.

May will formally change his plea in a hearing Monday in Columbia, and he will be sentenced at a later date.

Each count carries between five and 20 years in federal prison, which can be served consecutively or concurrently, along with a maximum $250,000 fine and a minimum five-year supervised release, which could last for life. May will also be required to pay $40,000 in restitution to funds that assist victims of trafficking and child sex abuse.

Opening arguments in his trial had been scheduled to begin on Oct. 9, about four months after the former lawmaker had been formally charged.

Federal prosecutors allege May, a Republican, used the username “joebidennnn69” to send and receive more than 250 videos containing child sex abuse on the social messaging app Kik over a five-day period. They claim the explicit videos were shared with users in 18 states and six countries.

Investigators said they did not find any child sex abuse material on May’s devices, including his phones, laptop, and hard drives. But a memo filed by federal prosecutors stated Kik compiled data from May’s alleged account in July 2024, with content containing 265 videos depicting child sexual abuse material. The data also showed May’s account allegedly sent or received nearly 1,150 messages with other Kik users over the five-day period his account existed, with some discussing trading child sexual abuse material.

Kik’s data also included IP addresses from each message that was sent, with May’s account being used at his home’s Wi-Fi network 958 times.

“Agents confirmed during surveillance of the residence, and again during the search of the residence. that the Wi-Fi at the May residence was password protected,” May’s indictment read in part. “Thus, for the CSAM activity on Kik to have been conducted by someone other than May, that person would have had to know the Wi-Fi password.”

Activity on the account was also accessed via a virtual private network as well as a Verizon Wireless account, documents state.

Documents also stated that a forensic analysis of May’s phone showed he deleted Kik as well as other apps Telegram, Mega and Loki Messenger, within seconds of each other in April 2024. It also showed May allegedly used Kik to discuss the use of Telegram and Messenger, which prosecutors noted “both of which are applications that have frequently been used by individuals engaged in CSAM activity due to their encryption and foreign ownership.”

The memo stated May’s Mega account was registered to the name “Eric Rentling,” which was an alias he allegedly used to create a Facebook account in that name. Investigators found the photo associated with the Facebook account “appears to be a picture of the back of May’s head.”

Investigators also found the Eric Rentling account had conversations in Spanish with women from Colombia that “consisted largely of arranging ‘meet up’ dates, time, price negotiations, and rules regarding the videoing of sexual encounters, all of which are indicative of sex work.” May would also allegedly conduct Facebook searches on South Carolina political candidates while on the Eric Rentling account, including those of his most recent primary opponent.

The memo further stated May’s activity on Kik revealed “he has a sexual interest in children the same age as his own children” and that he has “a sexual interest in incest” between young children and their parents.

“May engaged in this behavior on his cell phone and from his own home on multiple occasions, presumably without his wife’s knowledge,” the memo read, “If he can hide this criminal activity from the person he shares a bedroom with, then he can easily hide it from any court enforcement mechanism. Furthermore, there is evidence that he has recently traveled to South America to engage in commercial sex, again presumably without his wife’s knowledge that he ever even left the country. Thus, he is very likely to be able to evade detection by court enforcement of release conditions.”

May, who worked as a political consultant, had initially been represented by his own attorney and then a public defender, but later chose to represent himself in his upcoming trial, which was scheduled to begin in early October in Columbia.

His earlier attorney had suggested May was framed by his political enemies, while May himself had adamantly denied the allegations.

He had been detained at the Edgefield County jail since his indictment in June, after a federal magistrate refused to grant bond to the father of two, citing the weight of evidence against him and the danger she believed he posed to his children and others.

In handwritten motions, May had asked for the location of his trial to be changed, citing “prejudicial” press reporting on his case that he argued would prevent an unbiased jury from being seated in Columbia, and requested the judge toss the search warrant investigators used to seize nearly three dozen electronic devices from his home in August 2024, plus exclude other evidence from being presented at trial.

A judge had not yet ruled on May’s requests by the time he pleaded.

May, 38, had represented part of Lexington County at the State House since 2021. He was suspended without pay from his elected office shortly after being federally indicted June 12, and he resigned nearly two months later.

He was most recently re-elected in November 2024, about three months after federal investigators raided his home and seized nearly three-dozen electronic devices, including cellphones, hard drives, and thumb drives. By the election, the search of May’s property had become public knowledge.

He rose to prominence in Columbia as a founding member of the hardline conservative South Carolina Freedom Caucus, which has been part of the effort to push the Republican Party in South Carolina further to the right.

The Lexington County representative spearheaded the group’s strategy during its early years as it frequently clashed with members of the larger House Republican Caucus, serving as vice chair of the Freedom Caucus until mid-2024, when the group elected new leadership.

May was marked present every day of this year’s legislative session, which began in January and ended in early May. However, the once-vocal member remained silent during debates on the House floor, largely staying seated at his back-corner desk throughout the year.

“The people of District 88 elected me to do a job, and that’s what I’m here to do,” May said during a House reorganizational session Dec. 3, in response to reporters’ questions about the investigation and upcoming session. “The people elected me to do a job, and I’ll continue to do the job I’ve done for the last four years.”