Political Ties & Hard Drives: The Fall of R.J. May III

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An armada of state and federal agents flooded a quiet West Columbia neighborhood on Wednesday, June 11 — double-cuffing one of South Carolina’s most conservative lawmakers before loading him into a blacked-out convoy of government vehicles.

By 4:50 p.m. EDT, S.C. Rep. Robert John ‘RJ’ May III stood outside his home on Lake Frances Drive — hands restrained, wearing a white T-shirt, gray gym shorts, dark tube socks, and slip-on dress boots — surrounded by agents in tactical vests and sunglasses.

At least six unmarked vehicles — including two Chevy Tahoes, a Suburban, a Silverado, a Nissan Titan, and a Jeep Grand Cherokee — clogged the residential street, blocking traffic as agents engaged with May, who stood shackled on the sidewalk.

Turning his back to onlookers, the father of two stood mostly still as his wife of nine years confronted agents wearing patches bearing the insignias of Homeland Security Investigations and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.

Members of the same agencies had raided May’s home ten months earlier — launching a probe that would span multiple countries, uncover volumes of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and form the basis for ten federal charges against the sitting lawmaker.

According to prosecutors, the case began when Kik — a messaging app long regarded as a haven for online predators — alerted the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) that 50 files containing CSAM had been sent from May’s home IP address.

The digital trail led squarely to one user: “joebidennnn69.”

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FROM RAID TO RUIN

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Arrested on a federal warrant last week, May was loaded into an unmarked pickup and taken to a jail overseen by Lexington County sheriff Jay Koon — one of numerous elected officials May once advised through his now-paralyzed consulting firm, Ivory Tusk Consulting.

By 5:30 p.m. EDT, the heavyset Republican appeared in the county’s booking system — listed as “on hold” for federal authorities, pending charges outlined in a written motion so graphic in its depictions of infant and toddler abuse that it defies summarization.

The now-unsealed filing — which contains explicit accounts of CSAM — can be viewed here.

Before that motion was filed, the S.C. Freedom Caucus (SCFC) — a bloc of staunchly conservative lawmakers routinely at war with the South Carolina Republican majority — had expelled May, denouncing the expected charges against him as “heinous.”

“The [SCFC] stands firmly on the rule of law and the protection of children,” wrote Rep. Jordan Pace, chairman of the group, in a statement issued shortly after May’s arrest. “We call for his immediate resignation from the House… We expect [these crimes] will be fully investigated.”

First elected in 2020, May had served as the caucus’s vice chairman and was widely viewed as its chief political strategist — a role he assumed after co-founding the caucus in late 2022, helping members secure victories and flip seats in fiercely contested GOP primary elections.

Although the caucus disavowed him following his arrest, its handling of the issue had been muddied since last August — when FITSNews first reported that federal agents had raided May’s home and seized dozens of electronic storage devices in front of his family.

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??EXCLUSIVE: SOUTH CAROLINA REP. TAKEN INTO CUSTODY

?Lexington County, South Carolina

South Carolina Rep. R.J. May III was taken into custody on a federal arrest warrant shortly before 5 p.m. EDT Wednesday at his West Columbia home.

According to sources, May has been under… pic.twitter.com/nAa9Q5OwoE

— Andrew Fancher (@RealAndyFancher) June 11, 2025

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A motion filed last fall revealed the full scope of that seizure — including one laptop, one tablet, two DVDs, four cell phones, four hard drives, four SD cards and nineteen thumb drives — though investigators ultimately focused on just two of those devices.

Even as word of what agents had allegedly uncovered began circulating through legal circles — a clear sign that something damning was about to detonate — the SCFC made no public effort to distance itself from May.

At a November 2024 press conference detailing their legislative agenda, Pace repeatedly dodged questions about whether May was still a freedom caucus member — telling reporters, “there’s no reason to exclude him,” and, with a smirk, asking why they were asking.

Soon after, Rep. Josiah Magnuson posted to Facebook that May remained “a member of the Freedom Caucus and a duly elected representative,” adding that he wouldn’t rush to judgment — unlike Rep. Brandon Guffey and “so many others” — unless formal charges were filed.

The caucus’s position shifted only after FITSNews photographed May in handcuffs on June 11 — at which point they clarified he had not been “involved in the operations of the caucus” since the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) raided his home ten months earlier.

With once-fervent allies scrambling to cut ties, May spent his first night in custody exactly one year to the day after celebrating a decisive Republican primary win alongside his insurgent caucus peers.

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BEFORE THE BENCH

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Hours before news crews gathered outside the Matthew J. Perry Courthouse on Thursday, June 12 — hoping to capture Mays arrival — he had already been escorted inside, into a building where nothing containing a recording device is allowed beyond the front door.

Under the watchful eye of at least three U.S. Marshals, May appeared in a federal courtroom wearing the same clothes he was arrested in: a white T-shirt and gray gym shorts, now interrupted by a belly chain at his waist and shackles around his ankles.

Ahead of his arraignment to determine bond, federal prosecutors unsealed a ten-count indictment against May for “distribution of child pornography” — listing both “joebidennnn69” and a previously unknown alias, “Eric Rentling,” as co-defendants.

Upon the indictment’s unsealing, May was statutorily suspended from the S.C. House of Representatives — formalized by an order signed by S.C. House Speaker Murrell Smith, one of the most dominant figures in one of the state’s most powerful branches of government.

Smith, a longtime ally of the S.C. Republican establishment, had repeatedly failed to snuff out the insurgency within his own party — including a short-lived expulsion of the SCFC, followed by a multimillion-dollar campaign to unseat its members during last year’s primary.

Defiantly, the Freedom Caucus expanded its ranks.

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After weathering a coordinated effort ahead of the 2024 primaries, the SCFC appeared to hold firm — even gaining ground — until August 5, when a raid on May’s West Columbia home made statewide headlines.

Setting the stage for his downfall, May slipped into a prolonged silence — maintained full custody of his children, coasting to reelection against only a write-in challenger, and attending every day of the 2025 legislative session, noticeably thinner and paler than before.

Once a firebrand politician who rarely passed up a microphone, May said little when brought before U.S. magistrate Shiva V. Hodges last week — responding only with “yes, ma’am” and “yes, your honor” before entering a plea of not guilty.

Represented in court by Columbia attorney Dayne Phillips, the now-suspended lawmaker waived a formal reading of his indictment and opted to proceed with his detention hearing — foregoing his right to a five-day delay.

The government then called its sole witness — and the only person to take the stand that day: DHS Special Agent Britton Lorenzen, a former Spartanburg County deputy and U.S. Secret Service agent, whom the author recognized from May’s arrest the day before.

Under oath, Lorenzen retraced the investigation from its origins — laying out, step by step, how federal agents came to believe May was leading a double life.

That belief, she testified, was rooted in a forensic analysis of May’s Samsung — which showed Kik was downloaded in December 2023, as the S.C. House braced for a bruising, high-stakes showdown between the House GOP and nascent Freedom Caucus.

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THE BURDEN OF PROOF

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While not explicitly stated in court, Lorenzen’s timeline suggests Kik sat dormant on May’s phone during the first wave of an establishment-funded smear campaign targeting his allies — with authorities alleging the account “joebidennnn69” wasn’t registered until March 30, 2024.

The following day — Easter Sunday — Lorenzen testified that May began distributing approximately 220 child pornography videos over a five-day span, exchanging more than 1,145 messages about CSAM with an unspecified number of users.

Her testimony — in lockstep with prosecutors — revealed a “vast majority” of those chats occurred over May’s Verizon account and password-protected home Wi-Fi, all while he carried on with family life and political duties.

In addition to reading explicit messages between “joebidennnn69” and a redacted user aloud in court, Lorenzen testified that May also discussed the encrypted platforms Telegram and Mega with other Kik users — both of which had previously been downloaded to his phone.

Bolstering one of those claims, on April 2, 2024 — mid-way through the five-day stretch in which May allegedly distributed hundreds of CSAM files — a journalist received a Telegram notification stating that “RJ May” had just joined the platform.

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Though never labeled as such in court, messages tied to “joebidennnn69” read like those of a broker — actively offering and soliciting CSAM, with a disturbing fixation on incest involving “bad dads,” “bad moms,” and children reportedly the same age as May’s.

On April 4, 2024 — the same day May knocked on roughly 200 doors across Lexington County, campaigning as a conservative firebrand — prosecutors say he used his Lenovo laptop to search the word “hebephile,” a clinical term describing sexual interest in pubescent children. 

They allege May was unfamiliar with the word, which had appeared on Kik moments earlier.

Later that same afternoon, federal prosecutors revealed, Kik, Telegram and Mega were deleted from May’s Samsung within 20 seconds of each other — abruptly ending five days of activity that would lead to his federal arrest more than a year later.

While Lorenzen testified that no CSAM was recovered from May’s phone or laptop, she said investigators did retrieve the terms “joebidennnn69” and “joho12368” from within his Samsung — the latter believed to be an email address used to register the Kik account.

May’s attorney, Phillips, did not refute the forensic evidence during his cross-examination of Lorenzen — instead focusing on her confirmation that no CSAM was recovered from any of the 30-plus storage devices seized from May’s home.

But the tactic appeared to backfire when Lorenzen pivoted to a forensic interview with May’s seven-year-old son — describing it as “one of the more unusual” she’d seen in her career investigating crimes against children.

Lorenzen testified that when May’s son was asked about being photographed, he grew visibly agitated — saying he “couldn’t” or “wouldn’t” talk about it, then striking himself repeatedly before retrieving a piece of scotch tape and sealing his mouth shut.

The special agent later disclosed that nude photos of one of May’s children were found on his phone — but clarified they did not meet the legal threshold for CSAM and were not used in any criminal distribution, according to NCMEC.

In what became another strategic misfire, Phillips floated the idea that May had been framed — a theory that would require a sophisticated hacker to breach his phone and Wi-Fi, trade CSAM under a spoofed identity, and disappear without leaving a trace.

Pressed on whether agents had explored the possibility that May was framed — and whether Homeland Security had factored in his political enemies — Lorenzen replied flatly:

“There are a fair amount of people who don’t like me either, Mr. Phillips.”

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WHO IS “ERIC RENTLING?”

In addition to the already horrifying allegation that a sitting lawmaker distributed videos depicting the rape of infants and toddlers from his phone, federal prosecutors claimed the case had an international dimension — hinging on a second alias: “Eric Rentling.”

According to open court testimony and newly unsealed filings, the Mega app on May’s Samsung device was registered under that name — leading investigators to a Facebook profile bearing the same alias, allegedly used to communicate with sex workers in South America.

In court, Lorenzen repeatedly testified — with confidence — that the Facebook profile photo of “Eric Rentling” appeared to show the back of May’s head, pointing to the subject’s hair, broad shoulders, and hands as bearing an uncanny resemblance to the defendant.

Federal prosecutors backed that claim in writing, referencing the same profile photo in a now-unsealed detention motion: “The photo associated with this Facebook Account appears to be a picture of the back of May’s head.”

During cross-examination, Phillips pushed back on the government’s reliance of the image — noting it bore no actual nexus to May beyond a physical resemblance, and that it offered no connection whatsoever to CSAM.

While Homeland Security leaned heavily on the image, a simple reverse image search by FITSNews revealed a stunning oversight: the person in the photo wasn’t May at all.

The image — of a bearded man in a dark shirt sitting alone on a beach, facing the ocean — is a widely used stock photo pulled from Unsplash, freely available and recycled across blogs, mood boards, and social media posts since at least 2019.

Despite the easily disprovable profile photo, prosecutors allege May used the “Eric Rentling” Facebook account to message dozens of suspected sex workers across Colombia — coordinating meetups, negotiating prices and asking whether he could film.

Lorenzen testified that “Eric Rentling” exchanged at least 40 messages with suspected sex workers between April 2023 and July 2024 — and that U.S. Border Patrol confirmed May traveled to Bogotá and Medellín at least three times during that span.

Prosecutors further alleged that at least one Colombian was contacted during May’s brief CSAM spree — a period during which he logged out of his public Facebook account and immediately into the “Eric Rentling” alias to inquire about a suspected sex worker’s age.

According to prosecutors, additional analysis linked the alias to a Gmail and PayPal account allegedly used to coordinate May’s international travels.

While prosecutors did not present this detail in court, a PayPal search conducted by FITSNews linked May’s personal phone to an account bearing the name of “Eric Rentling.”

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“It is clear that May was the person engaged in these activities,” the government’s detention motion asserted, citing nine videos found on May’s laptop that allegedly show him exchanging money with three different women before having sex with them in Colombia.

On the stand, Lorenzen testified that many of the women in the recordings appeared “fairly young” based on “anatomy” she felt didn’t resemble that of a grown woman — though she offered no age verification, citing only a single message from one girl who claimed to be 17.

In an effort to identify “potential victims” seen in the alleged recordings, Lorenzen said Homeland Security dispatched two agents to Medellín — but despite months of alleged chat logs and hours of explicit footage, they returned to the U.S. without identifying a single person.

That failure stands out, as FITSNews reviewed more than 40 Facebook accounts previously tied to the “Eric Rentling” alias — many appearing to be run by adult, heavily tattooed Colombian sex workers, often posting in lingerie or nothing at all. 

Several listed their locations publicly — some even posing with friends and family at recognizable landmarks — making the government’s inability to identify a single individual all the more striking.

While making no effort to dispute May’s travel history or alleged dalliances, Phillips argued the government’s focus on “Eric Rentling” was misplaced — emphasizing the alias has no legal relevance to the criminal charges his client is facing.

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“A DARK RABIT HOLE”

In a two-hour detention hearing to determine whether May would remain behind bars pending trial, Phillips called no witnesses — even after a lengthy, whispered exchange with May’s wife, observed from the gallery as he leaned over the bar to speak with her.

Federal agents, both in court and in newly unsealed filings, said nothing on her phone connected her to the receipt or distribution of CSAM — arguing May was fully capable of hiding devastating secrets from even those closest to him.

Originally from the U.K., May’s wife sat beside her father — a former part-time employee of Ivory Tusk Consulting — who quietly consoled her as the government urged the court to detain May pending trial, describing the lawmaker’s case as a “dark rabbit hole.”

After prosecutors emphasized May’s international ties, Phillips countered that his client had ten months to flee — but instead hired both him and New York trial lawyer Marc Mukasey, remained in Lexington County, and didn’t miss a single day of the 2025 legislative session.

Even as FITSNews reported that indictments were imminent — a point Phillips echoed in court without attribution — he argued that May stayed put, ultimately caught off guard when a swarm of law enforcement agents took him into custody less than 24 hours earlier.

It wasn’t until Magistrate Hodges pressed Phillips directly that the attorney claimed May wasn’t the one behind the alleged conduct — prompting Hodges to note that such a claim couldn’t even be considered unless the defense overcame the presumption in favor of detention.

In a tense back-and-forth that followed, Phillips admitted it was “difficult” to produce evidence showing his client was framed — at which point the magistrate reminded him it was his decision to move forward with the hearing that day.

Ultimately, Hodges ruled in favor of the government, ordering May to remain in custody pending trial.

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“We are deeply disturbed by the charges against Mr. May,” wrote S.C. House Majority Leader Davey Hiott in a statement after May’s arraignment. “The conduct these charges allege are reprehensible, vile, and have no place in our society, let alone the House of Representatives.”

Within the same statement, Hiott said he had filed a formal ethics complaint against May — seeking to “further” investigate not only the suspended lawmaker, but his consulting ties to other House members, many of whom are affiliated with the S.C. Freedom Caucus.

Notably absent from the statement was any mention of the high-profile Republicans May previously advised — including Congressman Ralph Norman, Congressman Joe Wilson, and Wilson’s son, S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson, who recently launched his campaign for governor.

Also left unmentioned were the sheriffs May once represented — including Colleton County’s G.L. “Buddy” Hill and Berkeley County’s S. Duane Lewis, the latter of whom received additional consulting from a May associate who died by suicide after allegedly soliciting CSAM.

May, originally of Newport News, Virginia, studied at the American University of Dubai, graduated from the University of South Carolina, and was named a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar to Tel Aviv University in Israel, where he earned a master’s degree in security and diplomacy.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, May faces a mandatory minimum of five years and up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted — along with a $250,000 fine and at least five years of supervised release.

Last seen leaving Columbia in a worn-down minivan marked “Barnwell County Detention Center,” May was transferred to another facility last Friday, according to jail records.

His current location remains unknown.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…

Andrew Fancher is a Lone Star Emmy award-winning journalist from Dallas, Texas. Cut from a bloodline of outlaws and lawmen alike, he was the first of his family to graduate college which was accomplished with honors. Got a story idea or news tip for Andy? Email him directly and connect with him socially across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

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