A white woman who mistakenly accused a black teenager of stealing his cell phone and attacked him at a New York City hotel appeared Monday in a television interview Monday, suggesting he may have tried to steal her phone after all.
“So maybe it wasn’t him, but at the same time, how come as soon as I’m asked to leave the premises after accusing this person of stealing my phone, how come he suddenly miraculously only has the phone in the back? ”Miya Ponsetto, 22, told CBS This Morning.
The interview was conducted Thursday, hours before Ponsetto was arrested in Ventura County, California, for the Dec. 26 clash with 14-year-old Keyon Harrold Jr.. Ponsetto was charged Saturday in New York with attempted robbery, a grand theft, acting in a manner detrimental to a child and two counts of attempted assault, according to city police.
The security video released by police shows Ponsetto frantically catching Harrold as he tries to escape from her through the front door of Manhattan’s Arlo Hotel. The teen’s father, jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold, said Ponsetto’s phone had been left in an Uber and the driver returned it.
In the first part of the CBS interview, which aired Friday, Ponsetto told host Gayle King, “I don’t think that’s who I am as a person. I don’t think this mistake defines me. “
She was often combative in the clips aired Monday, interrupting King and his own lawyer, Sharen H Ghatan.
Ponsetto said he “felt from the bottom of my heart,” but added, “Are you 14? Is that what they claim? Yes, I’m 22, I’ve probably lived the same amount of life, as honestly. I’m a kid. of heart like him ”.
When King asked him to review the events at the hotel, Ponsetto said, “You already asked me at the beginning of the interview. I will not review it again. I would like to have a real interview with real and real questions. heart and sincere apologies. May 2021 be the time of healing, seriously. “
Ponsetto’s arrest happened more than a week of media coverage of the hotel lobby meeting and the demands of the family and teen activists to face criminal charges for what was seen as a case of racial profiles.
In the CBS interview, Ponsetto denied profiling the teenager and said his heritage was partly Puerto Rican. When King asked him if he believed a person of color could not be racist, he said, “Exactly.”
“I’m sorry I made the family go through all this stress, but at the same time it wasn’t just them going through it,” he said in parts of the interview that aired Friday. “But honestly, I apologize to my heart if I had made the child feel like I had assaulted him or if it hurt his father’s feelings or feelings.”