Did the New York Times fail to mention Nascimento Blair's kidnapping conviction and prison sentence in an April 2025 article about his deportation from the United States to Jamaica? No, that's not true: the authors mentioned the conviction and 15-year sentence in detail, and in several different parts of the article. Blair was convicted of first-degree kidnapping in 2006, released in 2020, and deported in February 2025.
The claim appeared in an April 24, 2025 post on X (archived here), which read:
The media found its newest criminal illegal alien to defend.
Nascimento Blair was convicted of first degree kidnapping and sentenced to 15 years in prison. An immigration judge ordered him removed from our country in 2008.
Why did @nytimes conveniently leave that out??
This is what it looked like at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot)
Alongside the text, the post contained screenshots from:
- A March 31, 2025 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) press release about the arrest and deportation of Blair and another man
- An April 24, 2025 New York Times feature article about Blair's life in the U.S. and his deportation to Jamaica
Contrary to the claim made in the X post, the New York Times article did indeed mention Blair's kidnapping conviction and imprisonment, in several places, and in detail. Here are all the instances when Blair's criminal history was mentioned in the article:
In the first few paragraphs of the story, in a section about Blair's initial interviews with Jamaican authorities, on his arrival there in February 2025:
Mr. Blair did not give them details about his past, an odyssey that began with a side hustle dealing marijuana in the New York suburbs as a 24-year-old Jamaican transplant, which led to a kidnapping conviction he disputed and a 15-year prison sentence he fulfilled.
It was his criminal past that had gotten him deported from the United States,...
In the first subsection of the article:
A judge ordered Mr. Blair to be deported after he was convicted of kidnapping in 2006, accused of abducting an acquaintance who had stolen weed from his apartment. Yet he was allowed to remain in the United States after leaving prison in 2020 because the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency did not consider Mr. Blair a priority for deportation.
That was during Mr. Trump's first term. He vowed it would be different in the second.
In a later section about how Blair's marijuana dealing in New York led to the episode that saw him convicted and imprisoned:
...an 18-year-old who lived in Mr. Blair's building broke into his apartment and stole half a pound of marijuana and money. Mr. Blair did not report the break-in to the police, fearful of getting busted for possessing marijuana. Instead, he took matters into his own hands.
...The police arrested him and two other men the following day, after they were accused of kidnapping the teenager, holding him at another apartment and demanding $5,000 from the teenager's father over the phone. Mr. Blair was accused of pistol-whipping the 18-year-old and driving him to the apartment, where prosecutors say he was tied up. The police freed the teenager that night after raiding the apartment, where they found two handguns and two pounds of marijuana.
The two other suspects pleaded guilty in exchange for reduced sentences. Mr. Blair pleaded not guilty and went to trial in 2006 and faced seven felony counts, including kidnapping and weapon charges.
Mr. Blair admitted that he demanded money from the teenager but maintains that he never held him against his will, never hit him with a gun and never tied him up.
Finally, in detailing his conviction and sentencing:
...After five days of deliberations, the jury found Mr. Blair guilty of kidnapping in the first degree, but not the other charges.
A judge sentenced him to a prison term of 15 years to life.
