Sophia Negroponte, the adopted daughter of John Negroponte, who served as the Director of National Intelligence under former President George W. Bush, has been sentenced to 35 years in prison. This verdict comes following her conviction for the fatal stabbing of a friend during a drunken altercation at a Maryland Airbnb six years ago.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Terrence McGann of the Montgomery County Circuit Court. In November, Sophia Negroponte, now 33, was found guilty of second-degree murder for the death of Yousuf Rasmussen, who was 24 at the time of his death.
This recent trial was actually a retrial; it followed the overturning of a 2023 conviction on the same charge. In January 2024, a Maryland appeals court annulled her initial conviction, prompting a new trial to be held in circuit court.
State’s Attorney John McCarthy remarked that the 35-year sentence is consistent with the initial judgment from 2023. According to The Associated Press, he stated, “This is an appropriate and just outcome in light of the seriousness of this crime and the consistent findings of two separate juries who carefully evaluated the evidence.”
“This is an appropriate and just outcome in light of the seriousness of this crime and the consistent findings of two separate juries who carefully evaluated the evidence.”
Negroponte was first convicted of second-degree murder in 2023 and received the same 35-year sentence, but, in January 2024, a Maryland appeals court threw out the conviction, calling for a new trial in circuit court.
The appeals court ordered a new trial after ruling jurors improperly heard contested portions of a police interrogation and testimony questioning Negroponteâs credibility.
Sophia Negroponte was one of five Honduran children who were abandoned or orphaned that John Negroponte and his wife, Diana, adopted after Negroponte was appointed US ambassador to the Central American country in the 1980s, according to The Washington Post.
Sophia Negroponte and Rasmussen attended the same Washington high school and had been drinking, along with another person, on the night Rasmussen was killed, McCarthy said previously.
They argued twice that night, and Rasmussen left the home.
When Rasmussen returned to get his cellphone, Negroponte “stabbed him multiple times, one a death blow that severed his jugular,” McCarthy said.
A 911 call prompted county and city officers and fire rescue personnel in Rockville, Maryland, to respond to an Airbnb property Feb. 13, 2020, at approximately 11:16 p.m.
Negroponte, then 27, was found inside the home covered in blood and lying on top of Rasmussen, yelling, “Iâm sorry,” according to charging documents obtained by Fox News Digital.
Rasmussen was pronounced dead at the home, and Negroponte was taken into custody, where she allegedly told investigators she did not remember attacking the man but recalled arguing over a “silly issue” and later removing a knife from his neck.
President George W. Bush appointed John Negroponte as the nationâs first intelligence director in 2005 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
He later served as deputy secretary of state.
He also previously served as ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations and Iraq.
