A woman who falsely accused a black teenager of stealing her phone and then tackled him in a hotel in New York City was arrested Thursday in her home state of California. Miya Ponsetto, 22, was jailed in Ventura County, the sheriff said. It was not immediately clear what charges she would face.
Police in New York flew detectives to California earlier Thursday with a warrant for Ponsetto’s arrest. The trip follows days of intense media coverage over the fracas at the hotel and demands by the teenager’s family and activists that she face criminal charges.
Ponsetto’s lawyer, Sharen Ghatan, told The Associated Press before the arrest that her client was “emotionally ill” and regretted her December 26 conflict with 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr. at the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan.
Ghatan told CBS New York that the incident was not racially motivated.
The teenager’s father, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, recorded the confrontation and posted the video online.
His video shows an excited woman claiming the teenager’s phone and claiming to have stolen it. A hotel manager tries to intervene. Keyon Harrold can be heard in the recording telling the woman that he should leave his son alone. Ghatan confirmed that Ponsetto is the woman in the video.
A security video later released by the NYPD shows Ponsetto violently grabbing the teenager as he tries to get away from her through the hotel’s front door. She is seen clutching him from behind before both tumble to the ground.
Sheriff’s Office in Ventura County (California)
Ponsetto’s missing phone was left in an Uber and was returned by the driver shortly thereafter, Keyon Harrold said.
The quarrel drew comparisons with cases such as that of Amy Cooper, a white woman accused of submitting a false report because she called 911 and said she was threatened by an “African-American man” in May.
Deputies from the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office arrested Ponsetto after she saw her near her home in Piru, northwest of Los Angeles, Capt. Eric Buschow said.
She “did not stop for deputies until she reached her residence” two blocks away, and then refused to get out of the car, Buschow said.
“She tried to slam the door of one of the delegates and it was then that they just got out there and forcibly removed her,” he said, adding that the sheriff’s prosecutors from the country would ask her to to complain that they are being arrested.
Ghatan said she spoke to her client earlier Thursday and that “she appears to me to be someone who is bad.”
She said Ponsetto “hacked” about the concern that her phone would disappear, and that it was not racially motivated.
It ‘could have been anyone’, she said.
Ghatan told CBS New York that Ponstto’s actions were “anxious, not racist”.
“She just wants the family to know that she did not notice the race, religion, nationality or religion of the other party, did not bother her.
Police said they are not investigating the case as a biased incident, C BS New York said.