Attorney General Alan Wilson, left, testifies at a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2026, in the Senate office building in Columbia, South Carolina. The senators in the background, left to right, are Ed Sutton, D-Charleston; Allen Blackmon, R-Health Springs; and Jeffrey Graham, D-Camden. (Photo by Adrian Ashford/SC Daily Gazette)
COLUMBIA — People who create or share images of children being sexually abused could be sent to prison for longer under legislation advancing in the Senate.
This week’s unanimous vote by a Senate Judiciary panel comes amid continued allegations by U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace that her chief rivals in the governor’s race protect pedophiles — which they either deny as ridiculous or decline to respond to at all. It also follows last month’s sentencing of ex-Rep. RJ May, a West Columbia Republican, to 17 1/2 years in federal prison for distributing videos of child sex abuse.
The proposal, sponsored by Lancaster County GOP Sen. Allen Blackmon, would increase the minimum prison sentences for crimes including selling, buying, filming, or producing videos of children being sexually abused by either one or two years. That would reset the sentencing floor at three or five years, with 10 or 20 remaining the max.
It would also set a five-year minimum sentence for prior sex offenders caught with images of children being sexually abused, whether they’re real images or created with artificial intelligence.
Blackmon told the SC Daily Gazette he pre-filed the bill for the 2026 session following an October news conference at the Statehouse with Attorney General Alan Wilson, when the gubernatorial candidate who’s often the focus of Mace’s criticism released a range of criminal justice ideas.
Wilson’s office oversees the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, which prosecutes crimes related to child sexual abuse material.
Following the Wilson campaign event, “I said, ‘Well, you know what, you can’t do anything without us putting in a bill for you,” said Blackmon, who has endorsed Wilson and stood behind him at that news conference.
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So, the Heath Springs Republican talked with Wilson, and attorneys for the Senate and task force worked together on writing the bill, Blackmon said.
Wilson was the lone person who testified on the bill at Tuesday’s hearing. A vote sent it to the full Senate Judiciary Committee.
A sentencing floor for repeat offenders has long been a top priority for task force attorneys, Wilson told senators.
“One of the issues that they have been harping on for years is the increasing amount of recidivism in the arena of child exploitation,” he said.
The bill also creates tiered minimum penalties for possession of images of children being sexually abused — real or morphed — that depend on how many photos or videos investigators find.
Existing state law requires no minimum punishment for possession of such images — only a maximum sentence of 10 years.
The bill would require at least a one-year sentence for possessing more than 25 images. Having more than 250 images would require at least two years in prison.
The bill does not go as far as Wilson proposed at his news conference, which included a five-year minimum for 25 to 250 images, and seven-year minimum for more.
In a statement to the Gazette, Mace called the bill a step in the right direction but said it didn’t go nearly far enough.
Creating child sex abuse material “should carry far more than a five-year mandatory minimum,” she wrote. “Possessing hundreds of images of children being abused should carry far more than a two-year minimum.”
Blackmon said he’d be fine with amending his bill to set higher minimum sentences for such depraved crimes. But he worried that would create pushback from legislators who want a judge to have total discretion and oppose setting floors.
“I think what I’ve got is something that’s somewhat logical and progressive, depending on the severity,” he said. “If we go too high, we might end up not being able to get this through the whole General Assembly.”
Mace spokeswoman Piper Gifford repeated the congresswoman’s accusation that Wilson, first elected attorney general in 2010, lets pedophiles go free.
“The Attorney General wants credit for raising penalties after spending 15 years pleading them down to nothing?” she wrote. “But now, in an election year, he’s suddenly tough on crime? Give us a break.”
‘The Wilson files’: Rep. Mace slams chief rival over data the AG’s office says she mischaracterized
Justin Hall, a spokesman for Wilson’s office, has said Mace is “drastically mischaracterizing pleas” and misunderstanding court data.
On Wednesday, campaign spokesman Woods Wooten said it’s simply not accurate that Wilson’s only newly pushing for changes.
He pointed to other legislation involving child sex abuse materials the attorney general’s advocated for that predate his campaign launch for governor last summer.
They include several bills signed into law last May.
Two criminalized the use of AI — or any other technology — to create or morph images of children into sexually explicit nudity or activity. South Carolina did not previously have a law criminalizing fake images. People testifying before legislators included a family whose children were victims of having their photos morphed into sexual situations but couldn’t even get access to state services for crime victims. The effort died with the end of session in 2024 but was reintroduced as separate legislation ahead of the 2025 session.
Another law signed last May aimed to make it easier to find and convict people downloading child pornography by authorizing the task force to subpoena websites and internet providers.
On Thursday, Mace went after another rival in the governor’s race.
“Step aside Alan Wilson, Pamela Evette is the newest pedophile protector,” Gifford said in a campaign email that went out ahead of a news conference where Gov. Henry McMaster endorsed Evette.
She accused campaign consultants for Evette of mocking Mace on social media in response to her investigation into unredacted records involving the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex offender and accused child sex trafficker who died in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial. Mace was among just four Republicans last year who signed a petition to force a vote on the House floor to require the U.S. Department of Justice to release all records in Epstein’s case.
Gifford noted the consultants’ posts, which commented on Mace’s posts, were also made on the one-year anniversary of Mace’s “scorched earth” speech on the U.S. House floor when she accused four men, including her ex-fiancé, of being sex predators. Mace said she was among the rape victims. All four men have repeatedly denied the claims. The speech resulted in lawsuits and counter-lawsuits.
“Rep. Mace is a survivor and she was one of the only Republicans who had the courage to sign the discharge petition to release the Epstein files,” Gifford said.
Evette’s campaign declined to respond.
Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette
