Woman who attacked and falsely accused the black musician’s son granted supervised freedom

Woman who attacked and falsely accused the black musician’s son granted supervised freedom

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Miya Ponsetto, 22, of Piru, California, was prosecuted on Saturday night on charges of attempted assault, endangering a child’s well-being, attempted theft and attempted theft, according to documents from the indictment.

None of the charges are eligible for bail, Manhattan DA spokeswoman Naomi Puzzello told CNN. The judge also issued protection orders to the victims.

Ponsetto was arrested Thursday in Piru, about two weeks after Keyon Harrold, a black jazz musician, posted a video on Instagram that showed Ponsetto making false claims against his teenage son at the Arlo SoHo boutique hotel in New York.

“The lady in this video assaulted my 14-year-old son and me when we came down from our room … for coffee,” wrote Harrold. The woman said she had lost the phone and “apparently my son magically acquired it,” wrote Harrold, calling the statement “ridiculous”.

The video of the meeting was widely shared on social media and seen as yet another example of racial discrimination against black men and boys.

The NYPD is not investigating this incident as a case of racial prejudice.

In a statement to CNN, Ponsetto’s lawyer, Paul D’Emilia, said his client was innocent and that the prosecutor’s evidence would refute most of the case.

“Last night’s prosecution was not the appropriate place to fully litigate our case,” he said. “Instead, it will be resolved in our courts and not through social media.”

Ponsetto’s next scheduled court hearing is March 29, according to Puzzello.

Incident was captured in surveillance video

According to the complaint, Ponsetto approached a man – whose name is not mentioned in the complaint – and his son at the hotel on December 26.

“You have my phone! Give me my phone! Show me your phone!” she shouted at her son, according to the complaint, before several times grabbing and launching herself towards him, her hands and pockets.

Ponsetto followed the father and son who were trying to get away from her, says the complaint, while grabbing her arms and clothes and trying to reach into her pocket.

In an email sent to CNN, Puzzello said that assistant prosecutor Sarah Marquez told the court that Ponsetto falsely accused the 14-year-old teenager of taking his phone and repeatedly attacked the 14-year-old teenager, dragging him to the ground while witnessing tried to intervene.

Marquez said the “unprovoked attack” was also captured in a 4-minute surveillance video at the hotel, according to Puzzello.

Rodney Harrison, head of NYPD detectives, said Ponsetto’s phone was returned to her moments after the incident by the driver of a shared vehicle she had previously used.

CNN contacted the SoHo hotel for more information about the surveillance video mentioned in the complaint.

Ponsetto has no previous criminal convictions, according to Manhattan prosecutors, but she faces three open cases in California, all stemming from separate incidents in 2020.

According to Puzzello’s email to CNN, in late February, Ponsetto was accused of public intoxication after she, her mother and someone else got involved in a physical fight at a hotel. In late May, she was accused of driving under the influence and driving with a suspended license. She was accused of driving drunk again in early October, in addition to driving with a suspended license and resisting arrest.

As part of her supervised release, Ponsetto is not allowed to contact the victims in the case and she must appear on all scheduled dates for the trial of unrelated open cases in California.

D’Emilia also accused the New York Police Department of choosing to “make matters worse” by sending police officers across the country to “bring back a person who would have returned with a simple phone call”.

Puzzello’s e-mail pointed out that, despite extensive media coverage, Ponsetto never made any effort to surrender to the authorities.

Even when she was eventually spotted and contacted by the police during a traffic stop, prosecutors said, she refused to get out of the vehicle and tried to slam the car door on a police officer.

Woman denied race was a factor in the CBS interview

In an interview with CBS “This Morning” recorded before his arrest, Ponsetto apologized and admitted that he could have handled the situation in New York differently.
Lawyer of the woman who attacked the black musician's son calls the client 'emotional evil'

But in a part of the interview that aired on Friday, Ponsetto insisted that race was not a factor and that his actions were not criminal, at one point appearing to try to justify his actions.

“How would you feel if you were alone in New York and knew that you would spend time with your family during the holidays and lose the one thing that was stolen from you and that has all access in the only way you can get home?”

Ponsetto said she was a “22-year-old girl”. But the interviewer, Gayle King of CBS, suggested that it made her old enough to know better – to which Ponsetto abruptly interrupted her, saying to King, “Okay, Gayle, enough.”

CNN’s Theresa Waldrop, Joe Sutton, Melanie Schuman, Brynn Gingras and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.

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