Daughter of ex-US ambassador to PH convicted of murder

Sophia Negroponte, 29, guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Yousuf Rasmussen.

The daughter of former U.S. intelligence director and former ambassador to the Philippines John Negroponte was convicted of stabbing to death a 24-year-old man after a drunken argument in Feb. 2020.

A jury in Montgomery County, Maryland found Sophia Negroponte, 29, guilty of second-degree murder in the death of Yousuf Rasmussen. She faces up to 40 years in prison at sentencing on March 31.

John Negroponte and his wife adopted Sophia Negroponte with four other orphaned or abandoned Honduran children after he was appointed as U.S. ambassador to the Central American country in the 1980s, according to The Washington Post.

According to the prosecution, Sophia and Rasmussen, former high school-mates in Washington, had been drinking that night at a home with another person. They argued , and when Rasmussen came back to the home to get his cellphone, Negroponte “stabbed him multiple times, one being a death blow that severed his jugular.”

The jury absolved Negroponte of first-degree, premeditated murder, according to the Post. The judge revoked her bond.

John Negroponte, 83, said his family might appeal the verdict, saying, “Neither the prosecutors nor perhaps the jury took into sufficient consideration the complexities and mitigating circumstances of the case — Sophia’s past trauma and other factors that led to a very troubled existence. She’s had severe alcohol use disorder.”

President George W. Bush appointed John Negroponte as the United States’ first intelligence director in 2005. He later served as deputy secretary of state. He had also served as ambassador to Honduras, Mexico, the Philippines, the United Nations and Iraq.