South Carolina state Rep. RJ May (R) — an anti-LGBTQ+ politician who has accused drag queens and transgender people of harming kids — was sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison on Wednesday after pleading guilty to five counts of distributing child sex abuse material (CSAM).

May — who was honored by the anti-LGBTQ+ “parents’ rights” group Moms for Liberty in 2023 as its Legislator of the Year — first denied the charges after investigators found evidence that he had shared hundreds of images of kids, including pictures of adults raping seven-year-olds. Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, who sentenced May, said the CSAM he shared was “more severe” than any other she had ever seen before, WIS-TV reported.

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After being arrested and indicted in June, May was suspended from his state congressional office and then resigned in disgrace. He originally planned to represent himself in court despite not having a law degree and asked the judge to throw out the warrant used to search his home, laptop, and mobile devices (which contained no CSAM, investigators said), as well as evidence that he had flown to Colombia to film himself having sex with three underage girls.

Then, his lawyer claimed that May had been framed by his political enemies. However, May eventually pleaded guilty in an agreement to drop five of the other charges against him. Though the federal government sought a 20-year prison sentence, May requested a shorter sentence followed by house arrest at his family’s Virginia farm.

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Investigators found that May sent nearly 500 explicit videos over five days in late March and early April of 2024, including 265 different files of toddlers and young children involved in sex acts on the Kik social media network under the screen name “joebidennnn69.” He reportedly shared CSAM with other internet users in 18 states and six countries.

A forensic analysis of his phone showed he deleted the messaging apps Kik, Telegram, Mega, and Loki Messenger, within seconds of each other in April 2024. He used the alias “Eric Rentling” on Mega and in a related Facebook account whose profile image was a picture of the back of his head.

Prosecutors said that May showed sexual interest in incest between young children and their parents, as well as an interest in children the same age as his own kids. Because some of the images featured children the same age as his own child — a seven-year-old — the 39-year-old was held without bail until his trial.

May was a founding member of the hardline conservative South Carolina Freedom Caucus, which pushed his state’s Republican party further to the right. During his time in the state legislature, May made anti-LGBTQ+ statements.

In a January 2024 House speech on transgender issues and kids, he said, “We as legislators have an obligation to ensure that our children have no harm done to them.” In a November 24, 2022, post on social media, he said that “exposing children to drag shows and pushing sex changes on toddlers” were forms of “child exploitation.”

He also compared Medicaid funding for gender-affirming care to the state paying for “lifestyles” like drug addiction, adding, “We as legislators have an obligation to ensure that our children have no harm done to them.”

Moms for Liberty (M4L) — the anti-LGBTQ+ extremist group regularly seeks to ban LGBTQ+-inclusive children’s books as a form of “pornography” and regularly accuses LGBTQ+ people and their allies of “grooming” children for sexual abuse — honored May as their 2023 Legislator of the Year and had him speak at their 2022 event on “Reclaiming Education in America.”

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