The daughter of a former top U.S. intelligence official has been convicted again for the fatal stabbing of a friend following a heated argument fueled by alcohol in a Maryland residence.

Sophia Negroponte, 32, of Washington, D.C., and daughter of John Negroponte, was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2020 killing of 24-year-old Yousuf Rasmussen, as reported by the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Initially convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2023, Negroponte’s conviction was later overturned.

An appeal led to the case being returned to Montgomery County Circuit Court after the jury was exposed to disputed elements of a police interview with Negroponte and testimony that challenged her trustworthiness from a prosecution witness.

Sophia Negroponte is one of five Honduran children, either abandoned or orphaned, who were adopted by John Negroponte and his spouse during his tenure as the U.S. ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, according to The Washington Post.

John Negroponte was appointed by former President George W. Bush as the United States’ inaugural intelligence director in 2005.

He later served as deputy secretary of state. He also served as ambassador to Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations and Iraq.

Sophia Negroponte, 32, the daughter of former US intelligence director John Negroponte has been convicted for a second time in the fatal stabbing of a friend after a drunken argument

Negroponte, 32, of Washington, D.C., was found guilty of second-degree murder in the 2020 death of 24-year-old Yousuf Rasmussen (pictured)

Negroponte’s case returned to Montgomery County after the Appellate Court of Maryland tossed out the first conviction in January 2024.

In a sharply worded opinion, three judges ruled that the trial court had erred by letting jurors see ‘contested portions of the video interrogation’ and by allowing a prosecution expert to comment on Negroponte’s credibility.

The reversal triggered a full retrial and a renewed confrontation between two families who had already lived through years of legal proceedings.

According to charging documents, first responders arrived at a cramped Airbnb in Rockville on February 13, 2020, where they found Rasmussen with fatal stab wounds, including a deep cut to the neck that severed his carotid artery. He died at the scene.

Investigators described a night of escalating alcohol-fueled chaos. 

Court filings stated the pair had argued, wrestled, and spiraled into what was described as an ‘alcoholic rage’ before Rasmussen was stabbed.

The killing stunned their circle of friends. Negroponte had described Rasmussen as her best friend during interviews with police, a detail that became one of the case’s most haunting elements.

Sophia sat silently as the second jury returned the same verdict as the first.

Former President George W. Bush appointed John Negroponte as the nation’s first intelligence director in 2005. He is pictured speaking in 2008

Sophia Negroponte, left, was convicted of second-degree murder in the case in 2023 and sentenced to 35 years in prison, but the conviction was overturned last year. She is pictured alongside her mother Diana Negroponte

According to The Washington Post, she ‘began dabbing her eyes’ as the guilty verdict was read out.

Her parents, John and Diana Negroponte, were again seated in the front row.

Across the aisle sat the parents of the victim, Zeba and Stephen Rasmussen, who appeared visibly relieved.

Rasmussen’s family had previously remembered him publicly as ‘a kind and gentle soul,’ thanking supporters for their help through years of grief.

This second trial introduced new DNA analysis offered by the defense, a key shift from the first proceeding. 

Experts showed that the only DNA found on the knife sheath belonged to Rasmussen, not Negroponte. 

Defense attorney David Moyse argued this supported their position that Rasmussen first unsheathed the weapon.

‘There’s a scuffle back and forth. There’s a mutual fight,’ Moyse told jurors in his closing argument.

Photos of cuts on the back of Negroponte’s hands were shown to bolster the claim that she had fought defensively. But prosecutors told the jury the wounds came from the blade slipping as she stabbed.

Much of the prosecution’s case hinged on the eyewitness testimony of the third person in the apartment that night, Philip Guthrie, who described seeing Negroponte stride to the kitchen and grab the knife.

 Sophia Negroponte faces up to 35 years in jail following her re conviction

Sophia Negroponte was one of five abandoned or orphaned Honduran children adopted by John Negroponte and his wife after he was appointed as US ambassador to Honduras. Ambassador Negroponte is pictured in 2007

‘Sophia takes several quick steps from where she’s standing in the kitchen, opens a drawer, grabs a knife, pulls the sheath off the knife and then quickly moves back toward Yousuf holding the knife out in front of her toward Yousuf’s neck,’ Guthrie testified.

Prosecutors repeatedly emphasized his sobriety and professional background to reinforce his reliability.

Assistant State’s Attorney Robert Hill told jurors that Guthrie’s training as a soccer referee made him an especially attentive witness.

‘You’re not supposed to miss calls… You’re supposed to keep an eye on what is happening before you.

‘I would submit to you that Philip was very sober, and especially stone-cold sober after what he saw,’ he added.

Jurors were also encouraged to revisit police body-camera footage showing Negroponte crouched over Rasmussen immediately after the stabbing, pressing a towel to his neck in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.

‘Yousuf, breathe!’ she said in the footage. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Jurors rejected Sophia Negroponte’s defense’s claim of mutual combat, siding instead with prosecutors who pointed to eyewitness testimony, body-camera video and her own interrogation statements

Sophia Negroponte and Rasmussen attended the same Washington high school and had been drinking, along with another person, on the night Rasmussen was killed

Prosecutor Donna Fenton argued that the apology that was caught on camera carried deep significance in evaluating intent.

Fenton also directed jurors to rewatch interrogation footage in which Negroponte made several damaging admissions about her own behavior that night.

‘Honestly I think that I was trying to shut him up and I just did something horribly wrong,’ Negroponte said in the videotaped interview.

‘I have anger management problems,’ she told detectives. At no point did she explicitly admit to stabbing Rasmussen.

Negroponte faces the prospect of up to 35 years behind bars following her second conviction and is due to be sentenced on February 19.