A homicide conviction in opposition to the adopted daughter of former President George W. Bush’s Director of Nationwide Intelligence John Negroponte was tossed by an appeals courtroom in Maryland on Tuesday due to materials the jury within the trial mustn’t have been uncovered to, in response to experiences.
Washington, D.C. radio station WTOP reported that three judges from the Appellate Courtroom of Maryland issued their opinion on the conviction of Sophia Negroponte, sending the case to a decrease courtroom as a result of jury members heard parts of an interrogation video through which detectives questioned Negroponte’s credibility.
Jury members additionally heard testimony from an skilled witness offered by the prosecution who questioned Negroponte’s credibility as nicely.
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In January 2023, then 30-year-old Negroponte was convicted of second-degree homicide within the 2020 demise of 24-year-old Yousuf Rasmussen. She was sentenced to 35 years in jail.
Negroponte and Rasmussen attended the identical Washington highschool and had been ingesting with one other individual on the evening of the February 2020 stabbing. They argued twice that evening, prosecutors stated.
At one level, when Rasmussen returned to the house to get his cellphone, Negroponte stabbed him a number of occasions, together with one blow that severed his jugular, authorities stated. Negroponte, then 27, was discovered inside the house lined in blood and mendacity on prime of Rasmussen yelling, “I am sorry,” in response to charging paperwork beforehand obtained by Fox Information Digital.
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She allegedly confessed to the killing to investigators. Protection legal professionals argued their consumer was so intoxicated on the time that she couldn’t have fashioned particular intent.
Her legal professional argued in the course of the enchantment that jury members mustn’t have seen some statements made whereas being questioned by detectives, calling into query Negroponte’s accounting of the occasions.
The courtroom agreed that detectives’ feedback that it was “odd” Negroponte couldn’t keep in mind parts of the night, ought to have been excluded from the trial.
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The courtroom famous that detectives didn’t essentially interact in improper questioning, however there was some questioning that the jury mustn’t have been uncovered to.
The appeals courtroom additionally discovered issues with one of many prosecution’s consultants, a forensic psychiatrist, who claimed Negroponte’s recollection of the occasions was unreliable.
The skilled stated throughout testimony that “it’s a must to take what she says with a grain of salt as a result of she has an incentive to brighten or diminish the quantity of alcohol she used as a result of she’s in that scenario.”
The appeals courtroom opined that testimony supplied by the skilled offered by the prosecution was inadmissible as a result of Negroponte’s credibility was on the “core of this case.”
Negroponte was one in every of 5 deserted or orphaned Honduran youngsters who John Negroponte and his spouse, Diana, adopted after Negroponte was appointed as U.S. ambassador to the Central American nation within the Nineteen Eighties.
