Dossier mode
Projection
The same investigation, restaged one beat at a time. Drive it with the arrow keys, space, or autoplay. Nothing is cut from the piece — long runs are split across frames. Read the full investigation or open the Sowing Division hub.
Projection: The Groomer Panic.
The government's own data says the typical offender is a middle-aged white American man with a clean record — not the caricature the panic sells. And a striking number of the panic's loudest pushers have themselves been convicted.
The 'groomer' panic is aimed away from where documented offenders actually are — and case after case, the people who weaponized the accusation turn up as the ones a court convicts.
Each conviction is fact. The generalization to a whole movement is a reading we will not run as fact.
of the 1,408 people sentenced federally for child-pornography offenses in FY2023 were U.S. citizens (98.8% men, 77.1% white, average age 41, most with little or no record). The loudest warning points at the border; the data points elsewhere.
U.S. Sentencing Commission, FY2023
The government's own numbers say the typical offender is a white, U.S.-citizen man — not the immigrant, trans person, or drag performer the panic points at.
USSC FY2023: 98.8% men, 77.1% white, 96.2% U.S. citizens, 71.2% little or no record, average age 41. Precise framing, because it cuts both ways: this is FEDERAL sentencing for largely child-pornography cases (most abuse is prosecuted in state courts), and white over-representation is not proof any race is uniquely dangerous. The honest point is not 'white men are the predators' — it is that the panic is aimed away from where the documented offenders are.
A 'family values' legislator who fought LGBTQ rights is in federal prison for distributing child sexual abuse material.
R.J. May III, a former South Carolina state representative and House Freedom Caucus founder who built his reputation on 'family values' and opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, pleaded guilty to five counts of distributing CSAM and was sentenced on January 14, 2026 to more than 17 years. He told the court he had lived 'a double life.'
Two January 6 rioters Trump pardoned turned up in child-abuse cases — one sentenced to life; for the other, the pardon erased the very probe that exposed him.
Andrew Paul Johnson, pardoned for J6, was convicted of molesting two children and sentenced to life on March 5, 2026. David Daniel, another pardoned rioter, agreed to plead guilty to child-exploitation charges investigators uncovered while examining his January 6 case. NPR reports dozens of pardoned rioters have since faced fresh legal trouble; two are child-exploitation cases — a pattern, not an anomaly.
More convictions: a 'law and order' prosecutor, a party-endorsed candidate, a pastor, a Republican judge, and a MAGA poster.
Kevin Etherington, an Oklahoma First Assistant DA, convicted and sentenced to 20 years; Ernest McCarthy, a Lucas County (OH) GOP-endorsed candidate, pleaded guilty to 15 CSAM felonies (20–21 years); pastor Jonathan Elwing, multiple life sentences on 12 counts; former Utah judge Kevin Christensen, guilty of enticing a minor; and Jason Esparza, a self-described Trump supporter, 93-years-to-life on 13 counts.
Still before the courts — a police chief, a councilman, a party chair, and a church volunteer — charged, and each presumed innocent.
These are charges and indictments, not convictions. Chad Essert, Bethel (OH) police chief, indicted on 70 counts; Kevin Hedgpeth, a Hanahan (SC) councilman, faces a 23-count federal indictment including sex trafficking of a minor; Hunter Rivera, a Weld County (CO) GOP chair, arrested in a sting and resigned; Doyle Gene Hodge II, a Texas church volunteer, charged. We name them because the charging documents and the offices are public — not as a verdict, which only a court can render.
It is not only officials: five rank-and-file accusers, each charged, each on a local docket and presumed innocent.
Where an activist archive paired a person's own 'groomer'/anti-LGBTQ posting with a child-sex charge, we verified a handful to the local newsroom or arresting agency and list them as charges, not convictions: Warren Meyer (Iowa, pleaded not guilty), Jason Gayman (Missouri), Trent Prather (Florida, 42,000+ files alleged, 20 counts), Marcus Marchegger (Nevada, 500+ files alleged), and Louis Noey (Texas). The rhetoric is their own posts; the charge is reported by a local outlet or the arresting agency.
The accusation was, for these accusers, a mirror — but it is a pattern of individuals, not a verdict on a party.
Read together, a pattern is hard to miss: people who made 'groomer' and 'pedophile' into political weapons turning up as the ones a court convicts. We grade the throughline SOME_SMOKE on purpose. What is FACT is each conviction and indictment, individually. What is a READING — and we label it — is the psychology of projection, and any suggestion this says something about a whole movement's rate of offending. It does not, and we will not claim it does. The provable point: the loudest accusers are not exempt from the accusation, and several have earned it in court.
Why it matters, and where it connects.
This is the Sowing Division method turned back on itself: a manufactured moral panic, aimed to divide, examined against who the record actually convicts. The discipline is the whole point — document each case, presume innocence wherever charges are pending, and refuse the partisan generalization the pattern invites. The honest claim is the smaller one, and it is the one that holds.