Crime & Safety
Murder Conviction Tossed For Daughter Of Former U.S. Diplomat: Report
Sophia Negroponte, the daughter of the former director of national intelligence, was convicted last year in the death of Yousuf Rasmussen.
MARYLAND — The murder conviction of Sophia Negroponte, the daughter of the former U.S. director of national intelligence, was tossed by a state appeals court on Tuesday, according to a Washington Post report.
Negroponte was initially convicted of second-degree murder in January 2023, three years after the stabbing death of 24-year-old Yousuf Rasmussen.
A three-judge Appellate Court of Maryland panel sent the case to a lower court for a new trial after police and an expert witness for the prosecution questioned Negroponte's credibility, the Post reported. The court also ruled that comments made by detectives during Negroponte's trial questioning her recollection of the stabbing should not have been heard by a jury.
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“The fact that appellant repeated an allegedly implausible story — that she did not remember the moment of the stabbing — and that she changed her recollection of detail was relevant,” the court wrote, according to the Post. “The expressions of disbelief by the detectives, however, were not.”
Negroponte is the daughter of John Negroponte, who was appointed as the country's first director of national intelligence in 2005 by President George W. Bush. He also served as an ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, Iraq and the United Nations, according to The Washington Post.
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On Feb. 13, 2020, police were called to the 400 block of West Montgomery Avenue, where Negroponte was staying in a short-term rental located behind the property. According to McCarthy, Negroponte and Rasmussen, who had been friends since high school, were together at the rental and consuming "substantial amounts of alcohol."
Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said Negroponte and Rasmussen fought on two separate occasions that night before Rasmussen decided to leave. Rasmussen returned to the house after forgetting his cell phone, which is when authorities said Negroponte stabbed him several times in the neck with a knife.
Last March, a Montgomery County Court Circuit Court judge sentenced Sophia Negroponte to 35 years in prison.
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