‘Karen’ Who Attacked Black Teen She Wrongly Accused of Stealing Her iPhone Gets Hate Crime Charge Erased; Attorney Says She Was ‘Unfairly Put Through a Public Ringer’ for the ‘Mishap’
A woman who was dubbed ‘SoHo Karen’ after being caught on camera wrongly accusing a Black teenager of stealing her cellphone at a New York City hotel got the hate crime she faced for the incident erased from her record.
Miya Ponsetto originally pleaded guilty to felony unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime for starting an altercation involving then-14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr. at the Arlo Soho Hotel on December 26, 2020.
Harrold’s father recorded the encounter that showed Ponsetto approach his son and accuse him to a hotel manager of taking her iPhone. The video from the hotel lobby showed Harrold and his son, who were guests of the hotel, trying to walk away from Ponsetto after rejecting her false claims, but she follows behind, grabs Harrold Jr. and tackles him to the ground to keep him from leaving.
Ponsetto later discovered that she had left her iPhone in an Uber vehicle she had taken earlier that day.
The plea deal she struck with Manhattan prosecutors in April 2022 dictated that as long as the 26-year-old stayed out of trouble with the law and completed two years of counseling, she could get the hate crime wiped from her record.
She met the terms of that deal this year and entered a new plea to misdemeanor second-degree aggravated harassment in the case. If she hadn’t held up her end of the agreement, she could have potentially faced prison time.
“In spite of my opinion that this matter was deliberately mischaracterized and mislabeled, I am relieved that our firm successfully convinced the New York County DA to forego any lasting damage to Miya,” Ponsetto’s attorney Paul D’Emilia said, according to The New York Post. “Ms. Ponsetto was unfairly put through a public wringer stemming from this mishap.”
In a 2021 interview with Gayle King on “CBS Mornings,” Ponsetto apologized to the Harrold family, stating she could have “approached the situation differently,” but also keenly working to defend her actions.
“So, maybe it wasn’t him. But at the same time, how is it so that as soon as I get asked to leave the premises after I had accused this person of stealing my phone … how is it that all of a sudden, they just miraculously have my phone when I come back?” Ponsetto rhetorically asked King.
She also denied that her conduct toward Harrold Jr. was racially motivated since she is a woman of color.
“I’m a 22-year-old girl, racism, how is one girl accusing a guy about a phone a crime? Where is the context in that? What is the deeper story here?”
The Harrold family also sued Ponsetto. That case remains pending at this time.