MIAMI – Newly-obtained arrest warrants reveal why the parents of Courtney Clenney, an OnlyFans model accused of murdering her boyfriend in Miami, are now facing charges in connection with their daughter’s case.
Deborah Clenney, 57, and Kim Clenney, 60, were arrested Tuesday in Travis County, Texas. Their daughter is accused of killing her boyfriend, Christian Obumseli, 27, by fatally stabbing him at their Edgewater apartment on April 3, 2022. She claims self-defense.
According to the arrest warrants, Deborah and Kim Clenney are each facing a charge of unauthorized access to a computer.
The warrants state that authorities, as they investigated Courtney Clenney, obtained via a warrant, text messages from Deborah Clenney. That tranche of messages included a group chat between Deborah and Kim Clenney and their daughter’s attorneys, including lawyers Frank Prieto and Sabrina Puglisi.
According to authorities, at some point following the killing, Kim Clenney had acquired Obumseli’s laptop from the apartment without permission.
The first message obtained regarding the laptop came from the group chat in September 2022, the warrant states.
Authorities said on Sept. 22, 2022, Kim Clenney messaged the group, “Forgot (sic) ask if she gave any ipotential (sic) passwords for the laptop.”
Prieto replied, “Yes. Sabrina and I have a list. We will provide,” the warrant states.
Over the following days, the group, including the attorneys, discuss potential passwords for the laptop, according to the warrant.
On Sept. 30, regarding one of the passwords, authorities said Kim Clenney messaged the group, “Hell yeah! That PIN worked!”
The warrant states that minutes later, Prieto replied, “Kim. Hold off on going through the computer please. I don’t want to turn you into a witness just yet if you find something useful.”
But, he added, “that is great news and makes this easie (sic).”
The group then discussed shipping the computer from Austin to Dallas so Prieto could pick it up, authorities said.
“When it comes to potential evidence, we always have to consider chain of custody issues and don’t necessarily want to take risk something gets lost in the mail,” Prieto told the group chat, according to the warrant. “But hang tight. We will make a decision by Monday.”
“I‘m sure you guessed by me (sic) prior text, we don’t want you accessing files because the State Attorneys could request their own independent analysis of the hard drive and accuse you of creating or modified files,” authorities said a text attributed to “Individual 2″ — Puglisi — reads. “That’s why I wanted to put a quick pause on that. Obviously I know you would not do that but we want to maintain that credibility.”
While named in the warrant, Prieto, Puglisi and other individuals in the group chat have not been charged in the case.
Kim Clenney said he “had barely opened it and was starting to poke around, but we started a video call so I stopped. Never opened a file, so I didn’t see anything,” the warrant states.
The group continued to exchange “more messages coordinating the unauthorized transfer of the victim’s laptop” over the following days, including a message from Deborah Clenney discussing her planning to drive to Dallas to drop off the laptop.
There was a gap in the messages between Jan. 19 to May 17, 2023, police said.
Authorities said the next time the laptop was discussed was on July 8, with a message from Prieto that read: “Good evening everyone. Mike Haas (IT expert) now has possession of all the electronics we need him to evaluate, clone, and run searches on. I did not have the password for the suspected Obumseli ASUS laptop handy. Does anyone have that readily available? Please send when you can.”
The next — and last known — discussion about the Obumseli’s laptop came on July 25, in which authorities said Kim Clenney wrote, “Courtney was asking about the visit schedule this week. Also, do we have any updates on the video and the laptop? Since it has been 7 weeks since the last Zoom meeting, possible we can set up another soon.”
Prieto released a statement to Local 10 News following the arrest of Deborah and Kim Clenney.
“We’re extremely surprised and very concerned about the arrest of the Clenney family; this could be an example of prosecutorial overreach and misconduct. It appears excessive in that the family is now confined in jail awaiting an extradition hearing on what may be an attempt to manipulate media headlines and discredit them before Thursday’s scheduled hearing on a gag order in the case. The Clenneys have quite a story and it’s a story the State of Florida maybe does not want the public to hear.
“We believe the Clenney family has been targeted with some trumped up charges to discredit them in the press and make their lives miserable. It stinks of a power play by prosecutors to control the narrative. This Thursday, the State is seeking a gag order in the case. Now they’ve gone after Courtney’s Mom and Dad in such a way that requires them to spend considerable time in jail without bond. Had they done this in Florida, the charge has a $5,000 bond, i.e., $500 to a bondsman, and that’s it. It appears the prosecutors are going for media mileage in this one with little or no evidence as we have yet to know what the true accusations are. It’s unnecessary and distasteful. All they had to do was a phone call and we would have been in court. It’s so inexcusable.”
Frank Prieto, attorney for Courtney Clenney
Courtney Clenney remains in jail, awaiting trial on a second-degree murder charge. She’s also now facing the same third-degree felony computer charge as her parents, according to an arrest form.
Following the arrests of Deborah and Kim Clenney, Obumseli family attorney Larry Handfield told Local 10 News that he is “happy the State Attorney’s Office is continuing to aggressively hold Ms. Clenney responsible and accountable.”
“The new charges support our position from day one this was not a justified killing,” Handfield said. “The tampering with evidence and obstruction supports our position this was not self-defense; this was someone not in self-control. We are grateful for the SAO for the new charges.”
He added that the alleged actions by Clenney’s attorneys represented a line he and his office “would never cross” and said it is up to prosecutors to decide whether they, too, should face charges.
Read the warrants: