More than 98,000 people have signed an online petition calling for the arrest of “Soho Karen” Miya Ponsetto after she falsely accused a black teenager of theft of her iPhone.
The petition, posted by Ben Crump, a prominent civil rights attorney calling the family of Keyon Harrold Jr. comes as calls mount for Manhattan prosecutors to charge Ponsetto in the Dec. 26 incident at a Soho hotel.
“Keyon Harrold Jr. will live with this trauma for life, the weight of racism on the shoulders of another generation,” Crump wrote online. “He deserves better than this treatment!”
The petition asks for 200,000 signatures.
Protesters also gathered outside a Los Angeles police station this weekend, where Ponsetto is now lying low, and called for her arrest in New York over the incident.
Harrold, the 14-year-old son of jazz trumpeter Keyon Harrold Sr., was with his father at the Arlo Hotel when Ponsetto sued him and accused him of stealing her iPhone – which was later returned to her by an Uber driver.
During the meeting, Ponsetto sees the teenager struggling.
The oldest Harrold posted the video on his Instagram page.
Last week, NYPD officials said the case, originally classified as harassment, could be upgraded based on footage from the encounter showing Ponsetto grabbing the teen’s leg and attempting to tackle him.
Crump’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.