Which republican politicians have been convicted of sex crimes in the past 5 years?

1. A headline case: RJ May and the limits of reporting

The clearest recent criminal case in the supplied reporting involves South Carolina Republican state Rep. RJ May, who was arrested and charged in 2025 with 10 counts of distributing child sexual-abuse material after prosecutors say files of toddlers and young children were exchanged via a social app; coverage details the charges, potential penalties and aspects of the charging documents but does not in these excerpts record a final conviction or sentencing at the time of publication ^{[1] [3]}. That distinction—charged versus convicted—matters for accuracy: sources show arrest and indictment-level reporting, not necessarily completed criminal adjudications ^{[1] [3]}.

2. Allegations vs. convictions: what the databases and outlets show

National tallies cited in the provided sources emphasize accusations, investigations and administrative punishments far more often than court convictions. PBS and the AP compiled counts of lawmakers accused of sexual harassment or misconduct since 2017 rather than convictions within a discrete recent window; PBS reports 147 lawmakers in 44 states accused since 2017, noting disciplinary actions such as suspensions of law licenses or election defeats tied to allegations ^[2]. The GovTrack and Ballotpedia records aggregate alleged and actual misconduct, indictments and other outcomes, but the snippets in the dossier show their pages mix categories and do not serve as a short list of convictions within the last five years ^{[4] [3]}.

3. Why conviction tracking is hard: different standards, jurisdictions and outcomes

The available material shows three structural reasons a clean answer is elusive in supplied reporting: first, news stories commonly report allegations, arrests or ethics findings before trials conclude ^{[2] [1]}. Second, misconduct databases such as GovTrack or Ballotpedia aggregate many categories (investigations, indictments, convictions, censures) across state and federal levels, complicating a simple “convicted in past five years” filter in the excerpts provided ^{[4] [3]}. Third, many high-profile items in recent years ended in professional discipline, resignation or electoral defeat rather than criminal conviction, as PBS notes in cases like former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, whose law license was suspended but whose 2018 accusations led to a misconduct hearing rather than necessarily a criminal conviction in the cited reporting ^[2].

4. What the supplied sources do confirm and what they do not

The supplied sources confirm: (a) at least one Republican state lawmaker (RJ May) faced criminal charges in 2025 for child sexual-abuse material distribution ^[1]; (b) broader counts of lawmakers accused of sexual misconduct since 2017—across parties—appear in reporting by PBS and AP ^{[2] [5]}. The supplied sources do not provide a vetted, exhaustive list of Republican politicians convicted of sex crimes in the past five years and do not, in these snippets, show completed conviction records for specific named Republicans beyond the charging/indictment stage ^{[2] [4] [3] [1]}.

5. Competing perspectives and potential hidden agendas in coverage

Mainstream outlets (PBS, AP, Guardian, Washington Post) frame these stories as public-interest reporting on alleged criminality, administrative discipline and the political fallout; advocacy-driven compilations (for example the partisan blog “Republican Sexual Predators” in the docket) aim to expose a pattern and have an explicit partisan framing that should be read as an advocacy project rather than neutral data ^{[2] [6] [1]}. Databases such as GovTrack and Ballotpedia aim for comprehensive aggregation but mix allegation types, which can overstate or understate conviction counts depending on how users filter the data ^{[4] [3]}.

6. How to get a definitive answer

To produce a definitive, reliably sourced list of Republican politicians convicted of sex crimes in the last five years you will need (a) court records or final-sentence reporting for each named case; (b) cross-checks with nonpartisan misconduct databases that mark “conviction” as an outcome; and (c) up-to-date local reporting for state-level prosecutions. The current set of supplied sources points to charges and allegations and offers starting names (notably RJ May) but does not supply the full conviction-level verification required to answer the original query comprehensively ^{[1] [4] [3]}.

Limitations: this analysis relies solely on the supplied search results and excerpts; these items emphasize allegations and charges and do not constitute a final, court-verified compilation of convictions ^{[2] [4] [3] [1]}.