COLUMBIA, S.C. — 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.

Currie also said no matter how long of a sentence she imposed, the suffering of the victims “will last a lifetime,” 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, spoke with his father and sister briefly, following which he was 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.

May acknowledged he can’t make an adequate apology, but he said, “I am sorry.”

May said after his house was raided, he started going to therapy.

“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.

May’s father, Robert May, and his sister, Megan May, spoke on his behalf at the sentencing, fighting through tears before seeing their family member sent off to prison.

“RJ I love you. You’ve been a great big brother to me,” Megan May said.

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.

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 as an up-and-coming lawmaker representing part of Lexington County — was set to swing into session at 2 pm.

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 that 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 “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.

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 numerous electronic devices including cell phones, flash drives and computers from his West Columbia house.

The investigation into May had begun in early 2024 when May was caught in an internet sting run by the government designed to catch people who traffic in child sex abuse images on social media.

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.

Federal prosecutors had wanted May to serve the legal maximum sentence of 20 years for one count of distributing child pornography on the internet.

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 Elliott Daniels, Scott Matthews and Dean Secor.

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