Roda Osman, who raised $42,000 online after allegedly lying about being hit in the face with a brick, has been charged with felony theft by deception.
In September 2023, a video went viral showing the African-American lady outside a Houston club, and she tearfully claimed that a man whose romantic advances she turned down hit her with a brick to the face.
Her story and image of her swollen face provoked a social media storm, especially on TikTok, and millions worldwide joined a call for the man responsible to be brought to justice.
Osman, 33, also opened a GoFundMe page to help pay for medical expenses.
However, Houston police have now deemed her claim a lie, charging her with theft by deception.
Click 2 Houston, quoting court documents, reported that Houston police officers responded to an aggravated assault incident on September 3.
According to the court documents, the police said a drunk and irate Osman first claimed that an unknown man threw a brick at her when she would not give him her phone number.
She also told officers she had ordered an Uber and believed the brick-throwing suspect was the Uber driver.
Osman further claimed that she got into the car with him where he then tried to kidnap her.
She added that she believed the Uber driver to be a part of a sex trafficking ring as he had a large group of women in the car with him.
However, police tried to set up a follow up call on September 15 and noticed that the phone number she provided was that of a female friend who was with her during the September 3 incident.
The friend told police she went with Osman to drink at many places and Osman called her male friends to pick them up.
Two men arrived in a dark sedan, and they both hopped into the vehicle, with the friend sitting in the front seat while Osman sat in the back with the other man, per the court documents.
The friend claimed that she later heard her friend ask the man in the backseat why he had hit her. “Ouch – why you hit me?” her friend quoted Osman saying in the car.
But she didn’t remember hearing any commotion or arguments erupt in the vehicle. The friend also denied ever seeing anyone hit Osman with a brick.
The friend stated off the record that she did not believe Osman was hit with a brick, according to charging documents.
CCTV footage obtained by police also negated Osman’s narration of the incident.
In the footage, Olan Douglas, the man accused of assaulting Osman, was identified.
Detectives watched as Douglas, Osman, and her friend chatted as they walked towards a garden lounge before the attack, only to re-emerge 20 minutes later.
They subsequently walked towards a parked Maserati nearby.
As Osman was dancing up on Douglas, her friend conversed with another man before they all entered the car.
The court documents state that an argument allegedly broke out between Osman and Douglas, and he swung his right hand while holding what appeared to be a plastic water bottle, striking Osman in the face.
Douglas got out of the car and entered an Audi A3 that had pulled up while Osman moved to the front seat of the Maserati.
She eventually got out, and the vehicle sped off.
However, the footage did not support Osman’s initial statement that she was hit with a brick by a black male as she was walking down the street because she declined to give him her phone number.
Leave a Reply