Texas ‘Brick Lady’ Wanted After Raising Thousands In Alleged GoFundMe Scam
A Wild Story That Went Viral Out Of Houston Has Lead To Police Charging The Woman Who Claims She Was The Victim Of A Vicious Attack.
You may or may not of heard of the story of 33 year old Roda Osman who went viral on social media after making claims a man assaulted her with a brick outside a club in Houston in September 2023.
According to KPRC, Osman claimed that an unknown man threw a brick at her when she would not give him her phone number. Osman went live on Instagram after the incident.
Her story sent shockwaves through social media and was a hot topic for several weeks.
On Sept. 4, a day after the alleged assault was reported, a GoFundMe account was created and listed Osman as the beneficiary. The account raised $42,302 as of Oct. 25, 2023, according to charging documents.
But as police began to dig deeper into the investigation, they noticed some inconsistent details about Osman's story and surveillance video of the incident told a different story.
A Tip From A Tik Tok User Caused Police To Change The Direction Of The Investigation.
Detectives said they received a call from Daphne Sutton, a mental health advocate and blogger on TikTok, who believed Osman was conducting a scam because of a similar situation that happened in Minneapolis in 2020.
She reportedly provided detectives with another GoFundMe account that was created by or for Osman in 2020 with the same narrative of a “Black man hitting her.”
Detectives reached out to Minneapolis Police Department to ask about the incident and they were told that Minneapolis police not received any reports of Osman being assaulted in 2020.
An arrest warrant has been issued for Osman based on the evidence gathered.
Osman is now facing felony theft by deception charges and The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is asking the court to enter a $50,000 bail when she is arrested.
Osman addressed those who have doubted her in an Instagram post and GoFundMe in a statement says "The fundraiser has been removed from the platform, all donors have been refunded, and Roda Osman has been banned from using the platform for any future fundraisers."
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