Editor's Note: This report contains information about child sexual abuse material.
South Carolina Republican lawmaker RJ May will remain in jail as he awaits his federal trial on 10 counts of distributing child sexual abuse material.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Shiva Hodges said Thursday that the weight of evidence against May is significant. She cited his international travels and the danger he possibly poses to himself, his two young children and to other children.
May was arrested at his West Columbia home Wednesday, roughly 10 months after his house was raided in August 2024 by U.S. Homeland Security Investigation agents, who seized various electronic devices, such as cellphones, hard drives, a CD and thumb drives.
May, who was shackled at his wrists and ankles at his first federal court appearance Thursday in Columbia, entered a plea of not guilty.
The indictment said May, 38, used username “joebidennnn69” and alias "Eric Rentling" to exchange more than 200 files containing child sexual abuse on social messaging app Kik.
Prosecutors said they investigators were able to trace the app account to May's home IP address and cellphone.
May's attorney Dayne Phillips suggested Thursday that the accounts were not May's, and that someone could have hacked into May's Wi-Fi after May's wife posted a photo online that showed the account's password. He noted May has many "political enemies."
Phillips said investigators did not find sexual images of children on his laptop or phone.
The charges carry prison terms of five to 20 years if convicted.
He also faces a potential fine of $250,000, plus up to five years of supervised release.
Federal prosecutors said the evidence is strong enough that May likely faces a long prison sentence if convicted.
As required by law, House Speaker Murrell Smith, R-Sumter, suspended May from office without pay. He did not comment further.
Interim U.S. Attorney of South Carolina Bryan Stirling declined to comment further than to note May is innocent until proven guilty and deferred to court filings and testimony.
May is a longtime Republican political consultant in South Carolina.
He was elected to the S.C. House to represent District 88 in 2020, and was the main driver in the formation of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and previously was its vice chair.
The freedom caucus has since called for May's resignation from the House.
What court filings allege
May — sporting a beard and wearing a white shirt, grey shorts and boots — faced the judge for most of his two-hour hearing as prosecutors outlined the case against him.
In testimony given Thursday and in court filings, prosecutor Scott Matthews said May downloaded the Kik app in December 2023 and registered an account on March 30, 2024.
Not long after, prosecutors said May deleted the account.
But court filings said that on May 27, 2024, the app sent a cyber tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, flagging 50 files of child sex abuse material by Kik user "joebidennnn69" the afternoon of March 31, 2024.
Court documents said an IP address was traced to May's West Columbia home.
The report was sent to the state Attorney General's Office, then the Lexington County Sheriff's Department, which sought a search warrant for the AT&T account information.
On June 27, 2024, the sheriff's department got a search warrant for the Kik account, which court filings said showed user "joebidennnn69" had used a Samsung cellphone belonging to May that contained 220 unique files, showing child sex abuse material.
May, court filings said, distributed "220 different child pornography videos about 479 times over the course of 5 days. (May distributed the same video sometimes multiple times)."
From March 30, 2024, to April 4, 2024, that username sent or received more than 1,100 messages with other Kik users — messages that discussed trading the material with other users, prosecutors said.
Court filings said May used the Kik app via a VPN 48 times, the Verizon account for May's cellphone 67 times and May's password-protected wi-fi at home almost 960 times.
In August 2024, May's home was raised by Homeland Security Investigations.
HSI Special Agent Britton Lorenzen testified Thursday for the prosecution that a forensic review of May's phone showed that May had deleted the Kik app, along with other encrypted applications, like Telegram.
All were deleted within seconds of one another, Lorenzen said.
May is also accused of using another alias, "Eric Rentling," to make a Facebook account, a discovery court documents said was made through a review of May's phone. Lorenzen said the Facebook photo appears to be the back of May's head and hands.
The account, prosecutors said, was used to have no less than 40 conversations between April 12, 2023, and July 31, 2024, with young women he paid for sex around the Medellin, Colombia, area — "a place well known for sex work," court filings said.
Lorenzen testified HSI was not able to identify the young women in the videos.
Lorenzen said, in some cases, May was multitasking on his phone while videos were sent over Kik. Records, she said, showed May on the phone with his wife, looking up Statehouse legislation and sending a "happy Easter" text message to a friend.
Who is RJ May?
May, a former executive director of the state Club for Growth who runs Republican campaigns with his firm Ivory Tusk Consulting, was elected to his first two-year term in the S.C. House in 2020.
His LinkedIn account shows various work in year’s past for South Carolina Republicans and Republican public relations and marketing firms.
May, a married father of two children under the age of 10, last won reelection in November 2024. He was challenged by a write-in candidate.
In 2022, May helped launch the hardline House Freedom Caucus, serving as the group’s vice chair at the time.
Not long after the group’s formation, May found himself at odds with House leadership — an intraparty breakup largely sparked by May’s own professional campaign work that sought to oust a sitting incumbent GOP lawmaker.
It led to a new set of House GOP Caucus rules that forbid Republican legislators from joining the mainstay caucus — a private forum for members to talk about policy and strategy openly — and campaigning against Republican incumbents.
May and more than a dozen conservative colleagues refused to sign the rules, declaring the campaign prohibition as a direct attack on May’s work and a “loyalty oath.”
He has since been suspended from the group.
With a looming indictment, May continued to show up for the South Carolina legislative session that began Jan. 14 and officially ended May 8. Unlike his early years in the Statehouse, however, May stayed mostly at his desk.
May also declined to answer reporters’ specific questions about the investigation or the indictment, only saying, "The people of District 88 elected me to do a job, and that's what I'm here to do."
He did not take the floor to oppose or support bills and was mostly observed on his phone.
He did participate in votes.
And, unlike in his first two terms, May did not file any legislation this year.
