SoHo Gargoyle Miya Ponsetto Has Been Charged With a Hate Crime

Miya Ponsetto, the woman captured on camera attacking a Black teen and wrongfully accusing him of her stealing his cell phone in the lobby of a Soho hotel in December 2020, has been charged with aggravated harassment, endangering the welfare of a child, and, most notably, unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime.

Ponsetto is—pardon my French—a real piece of work. Video footage recorded by the victim’s father shows Ponsetto accusing Keyon Harrold Jr. of stealing her iPhone, claiming that the phone that he had in his hand was hers, and not his. It was later discovered that Ponsetto’s precious phone had been left in an Uber, and that Harrold Jr. was telling the truth.

Before Ponsetto was arrested, she had the opportunity to share her side of the story with Gayle King on CBS This Morning, a generous offer under the circumstances.But the interview with King is difficult to watch—and hardly exonerating—largely because Ponsetto is so self-righteous, petulant, and unaware that she uses her own mixed-race background as protection against what was clearly an attempt at racial profiling. Not to mention that she sat for the interview wearing a hat that reads, inexplicably, “Daddy.”

The clips of her speaking to King in her own self-defense inevitably went viral, and exist now as a testament to the unwavering confidence of racists everywhere.

Ponsetto’s laywer, Paul D’Emilia, called the charges “absurd and a perversion of our legal system” in a statement to CNN. Naturally, Ponsetto has pled not guilty to the charges, and will be expected back in court in October.