She had accused the 14-year-old of stealing her telephone and tackled him at a New York City resort in a broadly seen video.
A 22-year-old California lady who wrongly accused a Black teenager of stealing her telephone and tackled him at a New York City resort in a broadly seen video was charged after returning to town on Saturday.
Miya Ponsetto was charged with tried theft, grand larceny, performing in a way injurious to a baby and two counts of tried assault, in accordance with metropolis police. NYPD detectives flew to California on Thursday with a warrant for the Piru resident’s arrest.
Ms. Ponsetto’s confrontation with 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr. on December 26 at Manhattan’s Arlo Hotel was recorded and posted on-line by his father, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold. The video exhibits an agitated lady demanding {the teenager}’s telephone, claiming he stole it. The telephone was discovered quickly afterward in an Uber.
Security video launched by metropolis police exhibits Ms. Ponsetto frantically grabbing on the teenager as he tried to get away from her by means of the resort’s entrance door.
The costs observe greater than every week of intense media protection of the resort foyer encounter and calls for by the teenager’s household and activists that she face felony costs.
‘This is not who I am’
Ms. Ponsetto apologised however defended herself in a tv interview performed earlier than 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 mentioned in a CBS This Morning interview that aired on Friday. “But I do sincerely from the bottom of my heart apologise 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 decide gave Ms. Ponsetto supervised launch and granted orders of safety in favour of the victims, in accordance with prosecutors.
Defense legal professional Paul D’Emilia mentioned Ms. Ponsetto was harmless of the costs 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,” Mr. D’Emilia mentioned in an e mail.
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