Sophia Negroponte Wiki

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The daughter of the former director of US national intelligence has been found guilty of the stabbing death of a Maryland man after an argument at an Airbnb.

A Montgomery County jury on Tuesday convicted Sophia Negroponte, 29, of second-degree murder in the February 2020 death of Yousuf Rasmussen, news outlets reported.

Negroponte faces up to 40 years in prison at the March 31 sentencing.She is the daughter of John Negroponte, who spent a long career in Washington as a diplomat before being named the first US Director of National Intelligence in 2005.

Investigation

Sophia Negroponte and Rasmussen attended the same Washington high school and had been drinking at a Maryland Airbnb, along with another person, the night Rasmussen was killed, Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy said.

They argued twice that night and Rasmussen left. When Rasmussen returned to get her cell phone, Negroponte “stabbed him multiple times, one of which was a fatal blow that severed his jugular,” McCarthy said.

Police said that when they arrived, Negroponte was on top of Rasmussen yelling: “I’m sorry.” During the investigation, Negroponte told police that she only remembers removing the knife from Rasmussen’s neck.

Defense attorney David Moyse had urged jurors to consider that Sophia Negroponte was so intoxicated that night that she could not have had a specific intent.

Murder

Alcohol permeates this case from the start; she permeates her life,’ she said, adding, ‘and she is absolutely at the heart of what happened there that night. And it’s one of the main reasons why this isn’t murder at all.

Jurors did not find Negroponte guilty of the most serious charge she faced, first-degree premeditated murder, according to the Post.

But she was convicted of second-degree murder and found that she intended to “inflict such serious bodily harm” on Rasmussen “that her death would likely result.”

Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Terrence J. McGann ordered his bond revoked, noting that Rasmussen was “ripped off this earth, at a very young age with his whole life ahead of him, in such a way horrible’.