Computer hacking charge dropped against Miami OnlyFans model accused of killing her boyfriend

Defence attorney Frank Prieto talks with OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney in the courtroom during a hearing in front of Judge Laura Shearon Cruz, where the computer hacking charges against her and her parents, Deborah and Kim Clenney, were dismissed at the Gerstein Justice Building, Thursday July 11, 2024, in Miami. (Pedro Portal/Miami Herald via AP)

MIAMI — South Florida prosecutors dropped the computer hacking charge Thursday against an OnlyFans model accused of fatally stabbing her boyfriend in a Miami condo in 2022.

The charge against Courtney Clenney, 29, was dropped after a circuit judge ruled last month that the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office violated attorney-client privilege in January when investigators confiscated text messages and emails between Clenney, her parents and her attorneys, according to court records. Clenney's parents had also been charged with hacking, and their charges were also dropped.

Clenney still faces a second-degree murder charge. Jail records show she's been held without bond since August 2022.

Defence attorney Jude Faccidomo, who represents the Clenneys in the hacking case, said the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office should recuse itself from the murder case because prosecutors obtained communications about defence strategy, which they weren't legally allowed to see.

"There is no ethical way for that office to stay on the homicide case knowing what they know and what they illegally garnered from breaching those messages," Faccidomo said.

The state attorney's office didn't respond to messages from The Associated Press asking whether it would recuse itself from Clenney's murder case.

Clenney, who had used the name Courtney Tailor on such platforms as Instagram and OnlyFans, fatally stabbed Christian Obumseli at the couple's Miami apartment in April 2022 as the culmination of a "tempestuous and combative relationship" that began in November 2020, prosecutors said previously.

Clenney has acknowledged killing Obumseli but said she was acting in self-defence. Her attorney, Frank Prieto, previously said that Obumseli was regularly abusive.

Clenney previously told investigators that Obumseli had pushed her and thrown her to the floor, which prompted her to grab a knife and throw it at Obumseli from about 10 feet (3 metres) away. The medical examiner who performed the autopsy on Obumseli said his wound could not have been caused by a knife thrown from that distance.

Clenney was arrested in Hawaii several days after the stabbing, but investigators believe she gave Obumseli's computer to her parents some time between the killing and her arrest. According to the arrest warrants, detectives recovered text messages where the parents discuss trying to gain access to the computer.