A federal judge sentenced former Republican South Carolina lawmaker RJ May to 17.5 years in prison on Wednesday, closing an ugly episode for the Statehouse.
Federal Judge Cameron Currie followed 39-year-old May's sentence with lifetime supervision, and ordered him to pay $58,000 in restitution to eight victims who submitted requests.
May, who helped launch the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus while in office and was the group's vice chair, pleaded guilty in September to five counts of distributing child sex abuse material.
May had asked the court to lower his sentence significantly to 60 months, or five years, followed by a significant period of home confinement with conditions.
In a letter to the court, the father of two young children said his divorce will soon be finalized, and after prison he will live on the family's farm in rural Virginia.
"As a result of my crimes, and perhaps justifiably so, the life I had is forever foreclosed. My arrest marked the swift and total destruction of all my hopes and dreams," May wrote the court. "Every plan has been shattered. Every worldly possession is gone."
Prosecutors said nine victims and three parents submitted impact statements.
In one statement, submitted by a victim named Lily, she wrote the impact has caused her "unending grief."
"My kids are around the ages that I was when sexually abusive things happened to me including the creation of CSAM; seeing how innocent my children are makes me understand more — not just how vulnerable I was — but also even more how sickening it is that perpetrators view the images of me being sexually abused at those ages. It hits me harder emotionally," she wrote.
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
