Woman Charged After Falsely Accusing Trumpeter Keyon Harrold’s Son of Stealing Her Phone in NYC

Security video released by city police shows Ponsetto frantically grabbing at the teenager as he tried to get away from her through the hotel’s front door.

The charges follow more than a week of intense media coverage of the hotel lobby encounter and demands by the teen’s family and activists that she face criminal charges.

Ponsetto apologized but defended herself in a television interview conducted before she was arrested in California.

“I don’t feel that that is who I am as a person. I don’t feel like this one mistake does define me,” she said in a CBS This Morning interview that aired Friday. “But I do sincerely from the bottom of my heart apologize that if I made the son feel as if I assaulted him or if I hurt his feelings or the father’s feelings.”

At her arraignment Saturday, the judge gave Ponsetto supervised release and granted orders of protection in favor of the victims, according to prosecutors.

Defense attorney Paul D’Emilia said Ponsetto was innocent of the charges and that the case “will be resolved in our courts and not through social media.”

“We are puzzled and disappointed that at this time of heightened tensions in our country that the authorities chose to exacerbate the situation by needlessly flying members of the NYPD across the country, into the teeth of COVID, to bring back a person who would have returned with a simple telephone request,” D’Emilia said in an email.