Miya Ponsetto pleads guilty after wrongly accusing Black teen | USA TODAY

Miya Ponsetto has pleaded guilty, but a plea deal on her 2020 assault and robbery case could reduce her charge to a misdemeanor.

RELATED: New Jersey police department calls for investigation after viral video of mall fight

A California woman who wrongly accused a Black teen of taking her phone at a New York City hotel, grabbing at him as he tried to leave, has reached a plea deal that spares her from prison if she avoids trouble.

Miya Ponsetto, 23, of Piru, pleaded guilty Monday to unlawful imprisonment as a hate crime, a felony, but will have a chance to replead to a misdemeanor aggravated harassment charge if she follows the terms of the agreement.

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28 comments

    1. You’re speaking about a hypothetical. That wasn’t the situation. You can assume all you like what would’ve happened if it was another circumstance, but that’s not what the circumstances were.

    1. @OK Let’s try this again She literally tried tackling him. And you’re right, the dad did push her away…but at that point, she’s committed assault and now you HAVE to stay for the police. You don’t deny she attacked him, but you’re calling him a fake victim? He was 14. You’re so disingenuous right now. How could they be expected to leave once she put hands on his child and now police reports and witness statements have to be taken? You’re right, they could’ve left if she just minded her own damn business. You’re making an indefensible argument right now, by all understanding of the facts and the law.

    2. @plotshift okay so assault on a minor I’ll go with that. Although most people would just laugh it off and go on about their day. Now we got hate crying and any other oppressed 1 victim card you can pull

    3. @OK Let’s try this again She assaulted a minor after accusing them of theft that wasn’t justified because they in no way and at no time had opportunity to steal it. But instead of just waiting for the hotel to find it and realize she could have been mistaken, she attacked them. Up to the point she did that, they should’ve been allowed to leave. But she got violent and now police have to be involved, and now they can’t leave. That’s not pulling some race victim card. Did you see her interviews after this, where she took no responsibility and accepted no blame for anything she did wrong? She literally said ‘if he feels like I assaulted him, then I’m sorry he feels that way’. She was entitled, egotistical, and very disrespectful. If it had been your child acting so rudely and aggressive in public, how would you feel? Proud, or embarrassed? Even after she found her phone, she tried to call herself the victim because the boy’s father shoved her off of him when she tackled the kid. She said she was assaulted, but didn’t think she assaulted anyone herself. If that’s the kind of person you think is in the right or unjustly maligned when she made herself look bad at every opportunity, if you think people inconvenienced and falsely accused by such people are just playing victims or looking for reasons to be, that’s insane. I’m sure given the choice, that boy and his father would’ve rather just gone about their day and never been known for this than go through it.

    4. @plotshift she thought he stole her phone. No big deal. The only things she did wrong with putting a hand on him. To play the hate crime card Beyond pathetic. If you don’t like my point of view I don’t care stop responding then

    5. @OK Let’s try this again No, she KNEW he stole her phone. She didn’t think it. She had it made up in her head that he was guilty. It wasn’t a civil request, it was an accusatory demand. And maybe you don’t like that the father felt it was maybe racially influenced, but I’m sure he’s experienced that kind of profiling before. I give him the benefit of the doubt, I look Hispanic and I see that kind of bias all the time. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told to go back to Mexico when I was born in Indiana.

  1. She caved in to a detective. They sat her down and told her what she’d face if she’d lose in court- she caved.

    The video she says find my iPhone brought her to the guy.
    Unless the phone was found-
    I’d be suspicious.

    1. They did find the phone – in her Uber she got dropped in, which she said was impossible while accusing them of stealing. They never had the phone.

    2. @Mike Rodriguez It’s cool. But her issue was going after the boy when he tried to leave the hotel. She chased him and tried to tackle him to prevent him from leaving, until the boy’s father came in and pushed her off his kid. After that, she tried to accuse the father of assault but denied that what she did to provoke the father, attacking his child, was assault on her end.

  2. She made an accusation and got charged with “Unlawful imprisonment” ? She was wrong and jumped to a false conclusion. How can she Unlawfully imprison anyone? Was she a police officer? She made a bad decision in her accusation and she made another one by not hiring a good attorney. But the worst part of all this is the lack of reporting from USA Today; it’s a one sided story.

    1. She wouldn’t let them leave, once you restrain someone from leaving of their free will, it’s literally unlawful imprisonment. You can accuse people of whatever, you can’t grab someone to keep them from leaving when they haven’t committed a crime. She wasn’t hotel staff or a security officer and they had no evidence of a wrongdoing other than her claims, which were quickly disproved shortly after the encounter.

    2. @plotshift that’s not at all what the video showed. Two men couldn’t get passed that little girl?
      And there was hotel staff all over the place. And at one point, she fell down.

      How did she hold them there?

    3. @Silver Bear Did you not see the boy try to leave out the door and her literally chase and grab him to keep him from leaving? That’s why his father intervened, because she was at that point physically assaulting his son. If you didn’t see that, you either weren’t watching or weren’t watching enough. It’s literally in the first fifteen seconds of this video.

    1. Jail sucks so bad, that you learn your lesson pretty quick in many cases…. This may be one. Hopefully she spent some days in there. It sucks.

  3. How is she going to learn her lesson without going to jail? Did she spend any time in jail? I spent one day in jail, and I learned my lesson from it. She better have spent at least some days in jail.

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