22-year-old Miya Ponsetto has now been charged with hate crimes, after pleading “not guilty” on June 30 during her virtual arraignment over charges that stemmed from an incident in a New York hotel.
Ponsetto, 22, falsely accused a 14-year-old Black teenager — Keyon Harrold Jr. — of stealing her phone while inside of Arlo Soho Hotel in New York City. During the encounter, Ponsetto became physical with the teenager, attempting to tackle him to the floor while allegedly screaming, “Show me my phone!”
Ponsetto had simply left the phone inside of her Uber. The driver returned the iPhone to her.
https://twitter.com/TheRebelGay/status/1344668715594489856
According to NBC News — on Wednesday, June 30 — Miya was indicted by a New York County grand jury on two counts of unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime, endangering the welfare of a child, and aggravated harassment. The source says that she pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Regarding Miya Ponsetto’s charges, her attorney — Paul D’Emilia — had the following statements:
“The charges alleged are a brazen and clear overreach of the intent of the statute. In sum, they are absurd, and a perversion of our legal system. As truly violent criminals maraud and run rampant through New York City, this DA exhibits zero interest in law enforcement and prosecution. Instead, he turns his prosecutorial fury on a distraught and panicked young woman stranded without her lifeline, her phone, thousands of miles from home. Shameful.”
NBC News also reports that Ponsetto, just earlier this year, was charged with a list of other crimes:
- attempted robbery,
- grand larceny
- acting in a manner injurious to a child
- and two counts of attempted assault.
When the woman was interviewed about her incident with the teenager, she said that she realizes should could have apologized to the family.
“Maybe not yelled at him like that, and made him feel, you know, some sort of, uh, inferior way, making him feel as if I was like, hurting his feelings — that’s not my intention,” Miya Ponsetto mentioned at the time. “I consider myself to be super sweet.”
According to CBS News, the woman’s next court date is Oct. 20, 2021.
