None of the charges are eligible for bail, Manhattan DA spokeswoman Naomi Puzzello told CNN. The judge also issued protective measures to the victims.
“The lady in this video assaulted my 14-year-old son and me as we came out of our room … to have breakfast,” Harrold wrote. The woman said she lost her phone and “apparently my son magically acquired it,” wrote Harrold, calling the claim “ludicrous.”
The NYPD is not investigating this incident as a case of racial bias.
In a statement to CNN, Ponsetto’s attorney Paul D’Emilia said his client was innocent and the prosecutor’s evidence would disprove most of their case.
“Last night’s arraignment was not an appropriate location to pursue our case in full,” he said. “Instead, it will be resolved in our courts and not through social media.”
According to Puzzello, Ponsetto’s next scheduled performance is on March 29.
Incident was recorded on surveillance video
According to the criminal complaint, Ponsetto approached a man – who does not mention the complaint – and his son at the hotel on December 26.
“You got my phone! Give me my phone! Show me your phone!” she yelled at the son, according to the complaint, before repeatedly grabbing his hands and pockets at him and leaping towards him.
Ponsetto followed the father and son as they tried to get away from her, the complaint says, grabbing their arms and clothes and trying to reach into their pockets.
In an email to CNN, Puzzello said assistant district attorney Sarah Marquez told the court that Ponsetto falsely accused the 14-year-old of taking her phone and repeatedly assaulted the 14-year-old and dragged him to the floor while witnesses tried to intervene. .
Marquez said the “unprovoked attack” was also captured on a 4-minute surveillance video at the hotel, according to Puzzello.
Rodney Harrison, chief investigators for the NYPD, said Ponsetto’s phone was returned to her shortly after the incident by the driver of a ride-share vehicle she had previously used.
CNN has contacted the SoHo hotel to inquire about the surveillance video referenced in the complaint.
Ponsetto has no previous criminal convictions, according to Manhattan prosecutors, but she is facing three open cases in California, all of which are the result of separate incidents in 2020.
According to Puzzello’s email to CNN, Ponsetto was accused of public intoxication in late February after she, her mother, and another person were involved in a physical argument at a hotel. In late May, she was charged with drunk driving and driving with a suspended driver’s license. She was charged again in early October with drunk driving, driving with a suspended driver’s license and resisting arrest.
As part of her supervised release, Ponsetto must not contact the victims in the case and must appear on all her scheduled court dates for the unrelated California ongoing cases.
D’Emilia also accused New York police of choosing to “aggravate the situation” by sending agents across the country to “bring back someone who would have returned with a simple telephone request.”
Puzzello’s email pointed out that, despite the widespread coverage, Ponsetto never made an attempt to surrender himself to the authorities.
Even when she was eventually located and contacted by police during a traffic stop, prosecutors said she refused to get out of her car and tried to slam her car door on an officer.
Female refused race was a factor in the CBS interview
But in part of the interview that aired Friday, Ponsetto insisted that race was not a factor and that her actions were not criminal, and at one point appeared to be trying to justify her actions.
“How would you feel if you were alone in New York and you know that you would spend time with your family during the holidays and you lose the one thing that is stolen from you that has all access to the only way you come back home? ‘
Ponsetto said she was a “22-year-old girl”. But the interviewer, Gayle King of CBS, suggested that this made her old enough to know better – to which Ponsetto cut her off and told King, “Okay Gayle, enough.”
CNN’s Theresa Waldrop, Joe Sutton, Melanie Schuman, Brynn Gingras and Ray Sanchez contributed to this report.