S.C. lawmaker granted public defender in federal child sex abuse material case

COLUMBIA, S.C. (WIS) - A South Carolina state lawmaker from Lexington County was back in federal court in his case involving child sex abuse material charges.

Rep. RJ May (R, Lexington) appeared before a federal judge Tuesday for an attorney status hearing.

May appeared without legal counsel and requested that the court appoint a public defender.

May was also ordered to sign a financial affidavit saying his only asset in his name was a truck, which is what led to him being assigned a public defender.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE:

• ‘Horrific’: McMaster comments on child porn case against lawmaker
• Indicted S.C. lawmaker could face expulsion over child porn case
• Prosecutors say Republican lawmaker used name ‘joebidennnn69’ to send child sex material

A motion for discovery was also filed by May’s public defender.

May has been ordered to remain detained pending trial.

Records show the next scheduled hearing in the case will be Aug. 20, with jury selection scheduled for Sept. 10.

BACKGROUND

May is charged with 10 counts of distributing child sexual abuse material. Those charges carry a maximum 20-year prison sentence, with a minimum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

He was suspended from his role in the South Carolina House following his arrest in Lexington County.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the social messaging app Kik alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in April 2024 of several videos containing child sex abuse from an account with the username “joebidennnn69.”

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Investigators found at least 10 of those videos had been shared from that account and connected it with May’s mobile device and home IP address.

An unsealed memo states 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, 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,” an 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, per documents.

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Documents also state 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 states 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.

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The memo further states 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 reads. “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.”

Last August, federal Homeland Security Investigations agents seized nearly three-dozen devices, including cellphones, hard drives and thumb drives, from May, according to an unsealed court document filed in October.

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The court filing was a request from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, asking for more time with the evidence investigators seized, which was permitted. In it, the federal government said it had expected to criminally indict May by March of this year, though it was unclear at that time what charges were expected to be brought against him or the scope and nature of the investigation.

State law requires the Speaker of the House immediately suspend state representatives who are indicted in state or federal court for certain crimes, including felonies, without pay until they are acquitted, convicted, plead guilty, or plead nolo contendere.

Lawmakers who are convicted lose their seat, while those who are acquitted or whose charges are dismissed can be reinstated and receive back pay.