Woman charged after falsely accusing Black teenager of stealing her phone

A 22-year-old California woman who wrongly accused a Black teenager of stealing her phone and tackled him at a New York City hotel in a widely seen video was charged after returning to the city on Saturday.

Miya Ponsetto was charged with attempted robbery, grand larceny, acting in a manner injurious to a child and two counts of attempted assault, according to city police. NYPD detectives flew to California on Thursday with a warrant for the Piru resident’s arrest.

Ponsetto’s confrontation with 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr on 26 December at the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan was recorded and posted online by the boy’s father, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold.

The video shows an agitated woman demanding the teenager’s phone, claiming he stole it. The phone was found soon afterwards, in an Uber.

Security video released by police shows Ponsetto frantically grabbing at the teenager as he tried to get away from her through the hotel’s front door.

The charges follow more than a week of intense media coverage and demands by the teen’s family and activists that she face criminal charges.

Ponsetto apologized but defended herself in a television interview conducted before she was arrested in California.

“I don’t feel that that is who I am as a person. I don’t feel like this one mistake does define me,” she told CBS. “But I do sincerely from the bottom of my heart apologize that if I made the son feel as if I assaulted him or if I hurt his feelings or the father’s feelings.”

At her arraignment on Saturday, the judge gave Ponsetto supervised release and granted orders of protection in favor of the victims, according to prosecutors.

Defense attorney Paul D’Emilia said Ponsetto was innocent of the charges and that the case “will be resolved in our courts and not through social media”.

“We are puzzled and disappointed that at this time of heightened tensions in our country that the authorities chose to exacerbate the situation by needlessly flying members of the NYPD across the country, into the teeth of Covid, to bring back a person who would have returned with a simple telephone request,” D’Emilia said in an email.