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Miya Ponsetto became known as “Soho Karen” after she became irate after noticing her cell phone was missing while at Manhattan’s Arlo hotel and put her hands on a 14-year-old African-American boy named Keyon Harrold Jr. that she accused of thieving her phone. She was later arrested and charged with two counts of attempted assault, attempted robbery, grand larceny in the fourth degree and endangering the welfare of a child over the December 26, 2020 incident, ABC reported. Harrold Jr.’s father, Keyon Sr., recorded the incident and it went viral on the internet. That incident wasn’t Ponsetto’s first time disturbing the peace.
Before the incident with the Harrolds, she is accused of damaging someone’s apartment door in the East Village section of Manhattan, the New York Post reported. That incident is still being investigated and she has not been charged. According to WPIX 11, she has three open cases in her home state of California. In February 2020, she was charged with public intoxication after a physical altercation at a hotel, which her mother and someone else were involved in, cops said. The Post reported that Ponsetto and her mother, Nicole, “allegedly pushed and kicked a cop after the allegedly drunken mother and daughter duo were asked to leave.” In May 2020, she was hit with charges of driving while under the influence of alcohol and driving with a suspended license, PIX 11 reported. In the May incident, she was spotted leaving supermarket intoxicated and then when she was pulled over, she was busted with marijuana and an open container of alcohol in her car. In October 2020, she was arrested again for another driving under intoxication charge along with driving with a suspended license yet again and resisting arrest. PIX 11 noted that during that arrest she was found to have a blood alcohol level of .14.
Ponsetto, 22, has been released from custody from the Red Hook Community Justice Center in Brooklyn, New York after being arrested regarding the incident with the Harrolds, the New York Post reported. Ponsetto is due back in court on March 29, 2021.
During her recent interview with Gayle King, she admitted she could’ve handled the situation differently but still rationalized her behavior.
“I admit, yes, I could have approached the situation differently or maybe not yelled at him like that. And made him feel sort of…inferior, she told King. “Making him feel as if I was hurting his feelings. That was not my intention.”
When King kept addressing what happened, she said “I apologized. Can we move on? I’m a 22-year-old girl. How is one girl accusing a guy about a phone a crime?
King then held her accountable for her terrible actions.
“You have to at least understand your actions that day,” Gayle said. “You seem to have attacked this teenager about the phone. And then it turned out he didn’t even have your phone. That’s the thing. You’re 22-years-old, but you’re old enough to know better.”
