A woman who claimed she was hit in the face with a brick by a man outside a Houston club last year has fled to Jamaica to avoid prosecution.
Roda Osman, 33, went viral last year after she claimed a man hit her with a brick for rejecting his advances.
Osman is facing one count of felony theft by deception for scamming supporters out of $42,000 on GoFundMe, according to a criminal complaint filed in Harris County District Court. She faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Osman was expected to turn herself in to police on Thursday, but she was a no-show.
Community activists Quannel X and Candence Matthews said she reached out to them for help, and they had agreed that she would turn herself in at 3:45 p.m., but when the time came, she didn’t show up.
Twitter/X users found her in Jamaica where she claims to be on vacation.
Brick Lady in Jamaica chile! https://t.co/Bt5mbyoeya pic.twitter.com/XAaQsbTQ40
— Mílagro (@MobzWorld) January 19, 2024
Authorities say Osman also raised around $40,000 with a similar scam in Minneapolis in 2020.
Osman, a native of Somalia, is accused of scamming sympathizers “with the same narrative of a ‘black man hitting her.'”
However, Osman claimed she was attacked both times.
“They’re trying to act like there’s a quota on how many times you can be assaulted,” she told The Daily Beast. “It’s like you can only be assaulted once every five years. Yes, I was assaulted in 2020, and there’s proof of that… They’re saying, ‘Oh she got attacked in 2020, and now she says she got attacked again, so she must be lying.'”
But Houston police say Osman’s claim is contradicted by video evidence.
A detective spoke to a friend who was with Osman the night of the alleged assault. The friend told the detective she didn’t believe Osman was hit in the face with a brick, according to the affidavit obtained by the Daily Beast.
The detective reviewed security camera footage from a neighboring business. The footage shows Osman and a male friend arguing outside a white Maserati.
Osman swung an object at the man and hit him in the face. The man hit her with a plastic water bottle, according to the affidavit.
Osman got back into the Maserati as the man drove away in an Audi A3.
The footage shows Osman then got out of the Maserati and went live on Instagram, claiming that she had been attacked with a brick, and that numerous men stood around and did nothing.
“Nobody seems to have any empathy for me,” Osman told the Daily Beast.
“I was assaulted, I was treated for a concussion, I am suffering panic attacks… All that should matter is that a man assaulted me with a deadly weapon.”
A GoFundMe created in September 2023 raised over $42,000. But GoFundMe removed the account and issued refunds to donors last year.
