Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/TikTok
A woman who went viral as the “Brick Lady” after claiming she was attacked by a brick-wielding man outside a Houston club is now facing felony charges for allegedly concocting the entire incident out of whole cloth—and fraudulently raising more than $40,000 in the aftermath.
Roda Osman, 33, is facing one count of theft by deception, according to a criminal complaint filed in Harris County District Court, an offense carrying up to 10 years in prison. A police detective’s affidavit filed with the complaint says Osman raised money off another phony assault claim in 2020, “with the same narrative of a ‘black man hitting her,’” which investigators say also never happened.
On Thursday, Osman, a first-generation Somali-American doctoral student at the University of Texas, insisted it was all true—and claimed Houston police are simply retaliating against her for demanding the arrest of her supposed attacker.