State drops computer hacking charges against parents, daughter in OnlyFans model murder case

State prosecutors dropped the computer hacking charges Thursday against the parents of OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney and of Clenney herself, who’s accused of stabbing her cryptocurrency-trader boyfriend to death in a Miami condo in 2022.

The decision comes after Circuit Judge Laura Shearon Cruz last month ruled the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office violated attorney-client privilege when police investigators confiscated texts messages and emails between Deborah Lyn Clenney and Kim DeWayne Clenney, their daughter and her attorneys in January.

READ MORE: In major blow to OnlyFans model computer hacking case, judge tosses state’s evidence

But the Clenneys’ attorneys said dropping the hacking charges is not enough. Jude Faccidomo, the Clenneys’ lawyer in the hacking case, said the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office must recuse itself from the murder case against Courtney because prosecutors obtained text messages and emails with her attorneys discussing defense strategy.

“Simply put, they can’t unring that bell,” Faccidomo said. “They can’t unknow what they know.”

Courtney’s attorney in the murder case, Frank Prieto, said his team has a motion ready seeking a state attorney’s office in another county to take over the case, but said he’s hoping the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office recuses itself before it’s filed.

“It’s really disheartening that the state took these tactics and invaded attorney-client privilege,” Prieto told reporters outside the courtroom. “They read our texts, our strategy in this case. They cannot and they should not remain on this case.”

Kim Clenney said he was thankful the computer charges were dropped, but he slammed the State Attorney’s Office for going after him and his wife, saying the prosecutors’ case against Courtney is “so weak, they had to go after her parents.”

Assistant State Attorney Shawn Abuhoff did not comment Thursday other than to announce the state was dropping the hacking charges.

The State Attorney’s Office issued this statement after the hearing:

“Judge Laura Cruz found that prosecutors were unaware that attorney Frank Prieto represented Kim and Deborah Clenney since a retainer agreement hiring him was only produced after their arrest. Additionally, attorney Prieto never publicly indicated that he represented Kim and Deborah Clenney, only their daughter.

“A reading of the group texts by police investigators appeared to indicate the commission of a crime. This information, supplied to prosecutors, resulted in the criminal charge. Since Judge Cruz’s ruling that the information contained in all the text messages were covered by attorney-client privilege excluding them from use in the criminal case, the charge against each was nolle prossed.”

The Herald reached out to the State Attorney’s Office for comment on the defense lawyers’ call for recusal, but did not receive a response.

More than 4,000 messages

The more than 4,000 messages were collected during a January raid on the Clenneys’ Austin, Texas, home after a judge signed a warrant giving investigators access to an iCloud account that stored communications between Courtney, her parents and her attorneys — Prieto and Sabrina Puglisi.

Prosecutors, when arguing against the motion to dismiss the messages as evidence, said they did not violate attorney-client privilege because they did not know Deborah and Kim Clenney had attorneys at the time the warrant was obtained since they were not charged with a crime.

But, Prieto and Puglisi countered that they had represented the Clenneys ever since their daughter’s arrest on second-degree murder in August 2022.

Many of the conversations in the text messages regarded how to gain access to the laptop belonging to Christian Obumseli, whom Courtney, now 28, is accused of murdering inside the couple’s Edgewater high-rise in what prosecutors say was a fit of rage in April 2022.

Deborah and Kim Clenney were each charged with a single count of illegally accessing Obumseli’s computer. Their daughter was charged with the same count.

Prosecutors believe Kim Clenney grabbed the computer from his daughter’s apartment in Edgewater some time between Obumseli’s April 2022 death and Courtney’s arrest in Hawaii in August that same year.

Courtney has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and said she killed Obumseli, who was 27, in self defense.

Deborah Clenney reiterated Thursday after the hearing that her daughter was “a victim of abuse and was forced to defend herself that night.”

Obumseli’s relatives have insisted he was never a threat.

International headlines

At the time of the killing, Courtney was a social media influencer who once boasted more than 2 million followers.

The murder case led to international headlines. Courtney and Christian were a young couple, and the model often detailed in posts their adventures living in Miami and traveling to locales like Hawaii, Las Vegas and Texas.

She was able to afford their lifestyle from the millions she made posing for racy OnlyFans posts.

In the days following her arrest, investigators uncovered several episodes of what appeared to be Courtney actually attacking Obumseli.

Prosecutors released a series of text messages in which Obumseli accused his girlfriend of stabbing him twice as well as a recording of her screaming at him and using racial slurs.

Clenney’s defense attorneys have dismissed the recordings, text messages and other evidence as “one-sided” and that don’t tell the whole story.

The couple had been dating two years prior to Obumseli’s death.

Courtney was once arrested for domestic battery in Las Vegas, and police were called several times to their home in Austin, Texas.

In Miami, staff at the Edgewater condo tried to evict them after several complaints.

Security camera video from February 2022 captured Courtney attacking Obumseli in the elevator of their Miami apartment building.

Their tumultuous relationship came to an end on April 3, 2022, when Courtney placed a frantic call to police reporting that her boyfriend had been stabbed.

This launched a months-long investigation that resulted in detectives and prosecutors concluding she killed her boyfriend, not due to self defense, but during a frenzy of anger.