TEXARKANA, Ark. — A Texarkana man who was sentenced in July to 25 years in state prison after a nearly yearlong manhunt now faces a federal charge that he failed to register as a sex offender while he was on the run.
A federal grand jury in the Texarkana Division of the Western District of Arkansas indicted Terrance Lee Blair, 63, on one count of failure to register as a sex offender. The indictment was filed Oct. 28 and unsealed Monday, when Blair made his first appearance in federal court.
The indictment alleges that between about July 28, 2025, and about June 25, 2026, Blair, “a person required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, and who traveled in interstate commerce, knowingly failed to register as a sex offender and update a registration.” It says the offense happened in the Texarkana Division “and elsewhere.” The one-page indictment, signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Graham Jones, does not say where Blair is alleged to have traveled.
Those dates line up with Blair’s time as a fugitive. Miller County court records list July 28, 2025, as the date he failed to appear in circuit court on pending felony cases, and June 25, 2026, as the date he was arrested. The U.S. Marshals Service said at the time that its fugitive task force, Texarkana Arkansas police and Arkansas State Police took him into custody in a wooded area just north of Lewisville, as TXKtoday reported in June.
Federal prosecutors asked that Blair be held without bond. He waived an immediate detention hearing but kept the right to ask for one later, and U.S. Magistrate Judge Spencer G. Singleton ordered him detained, according to an order signed Monday. The court also appointed a lawyer for him.
Failure to register under the federal law carries up to 10 years in prison.
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25 years in state court
Less than three weeks after his arrest, Blair resolved all of his Miller County cases. On July 14 he pleaded guilty before Circuit Judge Wren Autrey under a negotiated plea, according to sentencing orders filed July 29.
In the main case, 46CR-23-373, he pleaded guilty to 39 counts stemming from June 1, 2023: 37 counts of possession of a firearm by a person barred from having one and two counts of theft by receiving a firearm. He was sentenced to 15 years in the Arkansas Division of Correction on the firearm-possession counts and six years on the theft counts, all running together. The order also forfeits the weapons, which were the subject of a separate civil case.
He received five years on another firearm-possession case and, in 46CR-23-374, five years in prison plus a five-year suspended sentence for failing to comply with sex offender registration requirements in May 2023. Those sentences run at the same time as the 15 years.
For skipping court, Blair pleaded guilty to three counts of failure to appear in 46CR-26-342 and was sentenced to 10 years. That term runs after the others, for a total of 25 years.
Each sentence was longer than the state’s sentencing guidelines recommended. The order in the main case puts the 15-year term nine years above the presumptive sentence.
Blair was represented in the state cases by Texarkana attorney John Pickett. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney David Cotten handled them for the state.
Texarkana Arkansas police also arrested Blair on June 25 on a new state count of failing to comply with sex offender registration. A judge set his bond at $900,000 four days later. Cotten told police in an Aug. 10 letter that his office would not prosecute that count “due to plea to other charges.”
An indictment is an accusation. Blair is presumed innocent of the federal charge unless he is proved guilty in court.