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'That's Not Who I Am': Soho Karen Has Been Identified and is *Yawn* Speaking Out About the Incident

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Image for article titled 'That's Not Who I Am': Soho Karen Has Been Identified and is *Yawn* Speaking Out About the Incident
Screenshot: @keyonharrold/ Instagram

If “Karens never learn” was a person, she would have to be the white woman who accosted Jazz musician Keyon Harrold and his 14-year-old son at the Arlo Hotel in Soho, New York, over a cell phone she loudly and wrongly accused the teen of stealing.

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I mean, unless she lives under a rock that she gentrified, Becky-with-the-unmitigated-caucasity must be aware of viral sensations such as Amy “Central Park Karen” Cooper and Jennifer “BBQ Becky” Schulte, and she must have learned something from their follies—and yet, here we are.

Anyway, now that the NYPD is planning to bring assault charges on this ridiculous woman, she has apparently been identified as 22-year-old Miya Ponsetto from Sun Valley, Calif, according to the New York Post.

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From the Post:

Miya Ponsetto, 22, was identified by NYPD sources as the woman caught on camera falsely accusing the 14-year-old son of jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold of stealing her iPhone.

Photos posted online with Ponsetto’s name also appear to match the young woman who melted down in the lobby of the Arlo Hotel in Manhattan’s Soho neighborhood and tackled Keyon Harrold Jr. in a vestibule.

Public records show there’s only one person with the name Miya Ponsetto in the US. That person is 22 and has a last known address in Sun Valley, Calif.

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On Wednesday, NYPD Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison tweeted surveillance video that showed Ponsetto attempting to tackle the 14-year-old along with a caption “requesting the public’s assistance locating the suspect in this video,” who he said “falsely accused an innocent 14-year-old teenager of stealing her cellphone...then proceeded to physically attack him and fled the location.”

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Before she was identified by name, Ponsetto spoke with CNN about the incident. (Which kind of makes her seem remarkably accessible for someone nobody can seem to locate, but whatever.) CNN said much of its interview with Ponsetto was a bunch of “rambling” white nonsense (mostly my words, not CNN’s), but she did say a little on what happened before the now-viral recording started.

From CNN:

In a 20-minute phone interview, she said the incident unfolded after she first demanded to see the hotel’s surveillance video to try to pinpoint who may have taken her phone. She says she then asked someone else in the hotel lobby to “empty their pocket,” before ultimately confronting Keyon Harrold Jr., who she maintained had her phone in his pocket.

“That’s when everything got a little bit more serious,” the woman said referring to the interaction.

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Here’s a question: Who the fuck does this white woman think she is?

Never mind the fact that she found out she left her phone in an Uber after playing the female version of Paul Bart: Mall Cop in the hotel lobby; can you imagine the degree of privilege-induced superiority complex this woman must have been on to think she had the authority to demand to see surveillance footage and order fucking anyone to “empty their pockets?” Can somebody at long last please tell Great Value Olivia Benson to sit the fuck down?

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And of course, Ponsetto would like the world to know that she isn’t the monster the video clearly shows her being.

When asked whether she is concerned about facing the criminal charges she damn sure deserves, she said, “Of course I worry. That’s not who I am. I actually...try very hard to make sure that I am always doing the right thing.”

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Sure, Jan. God, I hope they find her and lock her ass up.