Woman must pay $9K in restitution for telling daughter to punch opponent at OC youth basketball game

GARDEN GROVE, Calif. (KABC) -- A mother must pay more than $9,000 in restitution and apologize to a teenage basketball player she told her daughter to hit during a youth basketball game in Garden Grove in 2021, a judge ruled Wednesday.

The woman's daughter punched the opponent in the neck and she collapsed on the court, suffering a concussion. The punch was recorded on cellphone video and went viral.

Prosecutors say Latira Shonty Hunt, 44, was in the stands Nov. 7, 2021 when she yelled at her daughter "you better hit her for that" following an interaction between her daughter and the opponent during the game.

In the video, Hunt's daughter is seen throwing a wild roundhouse punch that caught the 15-year-old opponent by surprise.

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Alice Ham, the mother of the 15-year-old girl who was hit, said her daughter suffered a concussion from the punch.

Hunt was charged a month later with one misdemeanor count of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and one misdemeanor count of battery.

Hunt faced up to a year in jail for the charges, but an Orange County superior judge allowed Hunt to participate in a diversion program that includes restitution and a written apology letter to the victim, the girl's parents and both basketball teams.

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She'll also have to complete anger management classes before she's allowed back at any games, and she must also stay away from the victim.

"A grown adult directing a child to use violence against another child on the basketball court is reprehensible," Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said in a statement. "By instructing her own daughter to engage in violence, she is not only responsible for injuring an innocent child as if she punched her with her own fist, but she transformed her own child into someone who is willing to hurt another child."

The girl who threw the punch is the daughter of former NBA player Corey Benjamin, who issued an apology shortly after he saw the video of the game last year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.