Miya Ponsetto Wiki
Miya Ponsetto Biography
Who is Miya Ponsetto ?
The California woman who gained national notoriety for wrongly accusing a black teenager of stealing her cell phone and then attacking him at a trendy Manhattan hotel, earning her the nickname ‘SoHo Karen,’ avoided jail time after coming to an agreement with prosecutors.
Miya Ponsetto, 23, of Simi Valley, has agreed to plead guilty to a hate crime for the December 2020 incident at the Arlo Hotel in exchange for two years of probation, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin said Monday. Bragg.
He accused 15-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr, the son of famed jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, of stealing his phone. In fact, he had left it in his Uber.
Ponsetto pleaded guilty to second-degree unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime, said Bragg, the progressive prosecutor who has been criticized for imposing light sentences for serious crimes.
She avoided jail, but was sentenced to probation and will be required to serve two years of the terms of her California probation stemming from a separate case.
She must also continue counseling and avoid committing more crimes.
If she complies, after two years her felony charges will be reduced to second-degree aggravated harassment, a class A misdemeanor.
Otherwise, she could be sentenced to four years in state prison.
“Ms. Ponsetto displayed scandalous behavior,” Bragg said.
“As a black man, I have personally experienced racial profiling countless times in my life and I sympathize with the young victim of this incident.
“This plea ensures proper accountability for Ms. Ponsetto by addressing the underlying causes of her behavior and ensuring that this behavior does not occur again.”
Ponsetto’s attorney said Monday that he was grateful to Bragg.
Incident
“Miya Ponsetto has led an exemplary life since this incident with the young man almost a year and a half ago,” said Paul D’Emilia.
“We appreciate the district attorney’s thoughtful and empathetic approach to finding an acceptable conclusion, especially in light of the unreasonable pressure exerted by many voices unfamiliar with the more granular details of what transpired that night.”
D’Emilia described the encounter as an “unfortunate misunderstanding” and said the misdemeanor harassment charge to which he will plead guilty if he stays out of trouble “more realistically reflects his actions that night at the Arlo Hotel.” .
He added: “It is Ms. Ponsetto’s wish that Keyon Harrold accept her regrets and apologies for her behavior that night, and that all involved may move forward with greater understanding and compassion.”
Keyon’s concerned father, Grammy-winning African-American jazz artist Keyon Harrold, told TMZ in March 2021 that he and the boy’s mother, Kat Rodriguez, were forced to find a trauma therapist for their son after of the attack.
He said his son was ‘seriously traumatized’ and made to feel like a criminal, asking his parents: ‘Why me?’
Harrold said he taught his son to have ‘dignity’ and an ‘ego’ when he was a young black man, but the assault left Keyon wracked with self-doubt.
I have tried to instill dignity in my son. I’m trying to build his ego, because for a long time black men’s egos have been shattered,” Harrold said.
He added that he often stays in hotels with his son due to his work as a musician.
But Keyon is afraid to go to hotels out of concern that the same thing will happen again and someone will accuse him of a crime.
“He wonders if he’s good enough to have an iPhone or if he’s out of place in a nice hotel,” Harrold said.
The teen’s family filed a civil lawsuit against Ponsetto and the hotel, alleging racial discrimination. The case is pending.
The lawsuit lists Ponsetto as a defendant, as well as the Arlo Soho hotel, its company that owns Quadrum Hospitality Group, hotel manager Chad Nathan and others.
The lawsuit alleges violation of the New York City Human Rights Law and New York State Human Rights Law, and also charges her with assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment, negligence, and forfeiture. of service.
The hotel and its management group are also accused of negligent hiring, with the lawsuit alleging Nathan “had a history of racially biased behavior and misconduct.”
Charged
On February 28, 2020, Ponsetto was charged with public intoxication after she, her mother, and another person got into a physical altercation at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills.
On May 29, 2020 and again on October 10, 2020, she was charged in Los Angeles with DUI.
READ RELATED: Is the Sarah Lawrence sex cult founder finally paying for his crimes?
Police were called last May after a witness saw her leaving a Malibu supermarket “clearly intoxicated” as she was driving away from her.
Officers responding to a 911 call from her found her with open containers of alcohol and marijuana in the car. She was also charged with driving on a suspended license.
In the October incident, police responding to a 911 call found Ponsetto in a gas station parking lot, again in a physical altercation with her mother.
The car she was driving was abandoned at a nearby intersection.
When an officer tried to put handcuffs on her, she resisted and was seen laying on the ground.
Ponsetto appears in her booking photo from January 8, 2021
‘I’m not even touching you,’ she can be heard screaming. You are literally asking for a lawsuit. I did not do anything to you.
She was also charged with driving on a suspended license and resisting arrest.
In September 2020, a judge sentenced Ponsetto to summary probation for three years after she did not object to driving under the influence.
In January 2021, a California judge dropped a misdemeanor public intoxication charge against Ponsetto, related to the February 2020 Peninsula arrest.
Her mother, Nicole Ponsetto, did not contest the assault on a police officer and public intoxication in the same incident.
She was sentenced to 100 hours of community service and entered a 12-month diversion program.
Family
Ponsetto claimed in interviews that he had been stopping everyone in the hotel lobby during the search for his missing phone.
“I was reaching out to people who had been leaving the hotel, because in my mind, anyone who was coming out could be the one trying to steal my phone,” she said.
Moments after the fight at the hotel, an Uber driver returned Ponsetto’s missing phone.
Harrold and Keyon Jr.’s mother, Kat Rodriguez, organized a rally in Manhattan shortly after the incident along with her attorney Ben Crump and the Rev. Al Sharpton.
“When I saw this story, I thought about how I was one of those kids whose father never took him anywhere for Christmas, he never had lunch with my father,” Sharpton said.
‘And for this black man to take his black son, put him in a hotel during a pandemic and spend Christmas with him, raise him and assault him because of the color of his skin, I wanted to be with this man and this woman who supported their son, and they are being criminalized for it.
‘The arrogance and audacity of this woman.’
Ponsetto’s attorney, Paul D’Emilia
In November 2021, when Ponsetto was asked about the Arlo hotel incident, he said, “I wish I had apologized in a different way.”
Ponsetto’s attorney, Paul D’Emilia, told the court during the November status hearing that he has been seeing a therapist and trying to schedule anger management classes.
Speaking to DailyMail.com outside the courtroom in November, D’Emilia said he believed his client had been “overcharged.”
“She was charged with crimes that were very aggravated, if I may say so,” he said.
“We don’t think those charges are appropriate, but we hope there is something we can come up with that is satisfactory to everyone.”
Ponsetto’s actions inside the boutique hotel were filmed by Grammy-winning African-American jazz artist Keyon Harrold as she approached her son, Keyon Jr.
In the footage, Ponsetto is seen pushing and grabbing her father and son, allegedly even scratching Keyon Sr.’s hands as she tried to snatch the cellphone from him, mistakenly believing it was hers.
Ponsetto, who lives in Los Angeles, was initially charged with assault and was allowed to fly back to California on bond, where she remains.
She was arraigned via videoconference in June 2021 on three new charges: Unlawful Imprisonment as a Hate Crime, Aggravated Harassment, and Endangering the Welfare of a Child.
Miya Ponsetto Quick and Facts
- Ponsetto, from Los Angeles, was caught on camera in December 2020 attacking a black teenager in a New York hotel lobby, accusing him of stealing her phone
- She accused Keyon Harrold Jr., 15 – the son of jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold – of theft, despite having left her phone in an Uber
- On Monday, Ponsetto pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment in the second degree as a hate crime, and was sentenced to probation
- She will be required for two years to abide by the terms of her California probation stemming from a separate case and to continue counseling
- But she did not receive any additional punishment for the attack on the teenager in the upscale boutique hotel
- Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA, said she ‘displayed outrageous behavior’ and that the punishment ‘ensures appropriate accountability’
Source: https://wikisoon.com/
