Courtney Clenney Case: Guilty Plea, Sentence, and Wrongful Death Suit

The Courtney Clenney case is a Miami second-degree murder prosecution in which social media model Courtney Clenney, known online as “Courtney Tailor,” is charged in the April 2022 stabbing death of her boyfriend, Christian Obumseli. She has pleaded not guilty, claims self-defense, and has been held without bond since her August 2022 arrest. After a run of delays, her trial is now scheduled for the third week of August 2026.¹

What Happened on April 3, 2022

Obumseli, 27, was fatally stabbed inside the couple’s condo in Miami’s Edgewater neighborhood. Clenney told investigators Obumseli had shoved her against a wall by her neck, thrown her to the ground, and advanced toward her. She said she grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threw it at him from roughly ten feet away.²

The Miami-Dade County medical examiner reached a different conclusion. The autopsy found the stab wound came from a “forceful downward thrust” that pierced Obumseli’s subclavian artery and penetrated just over three inches into his chest. The examiner determined that kind of wound was inconsistent with a knife thrown from the distance Clenney described.³

Clenney was not arrested that day. Miami police chief Manuel Morales later said it was “critical to ensure the charge would stand up in court,” explaining, “You only get one shot. You want to get it right.”⁴ She stayed with her parents in Texas, then traveled to Hawaii for treatment her attorney said was related to substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder. On August 10, 2022, the U.S. Marshals Service and Hawaii Police Department arrested her in Laupahoehoe on a Miami-Dade warrant charging second-degree murder with a deadly weapon.⁵

The Self-Defense Claim

Clenney’s defense rests on self-defense, with her attorneys also invoking battered spouse syndrome. Attorney Frank Prieto has said Obumseli was “regularly abusive” throughout the relationship and that Clenney “took action that night to save her life.”⁶ Co-counsel Sabrina Puglisi has alleged Obumseli “choked her and threw her to the ground” before the fatal confrontation.⁷

Prieto has pointed to police bodycam footage in which a neighbor reportedly told officers they had seen Obumseli assaulting Clenney on the couple’s balcony the day before the stabbing. The defense also says an independent witness saw Obumseli hitting Clenney in the head inside the apartment during the initial police response.² At a 2024 hearing, the defense showed a video of a man throwing knives at a pig carcass, intended to support Clenney’s account that a thrown knife could have caused the fatal wound.¹

What the Prosecution Says

Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has described the couple’s relationship as “extremely tempestuous and combative” and characterized Obumseli as a victim of domestic violence.⁸⁷⁹

Prosecutors have also pointed to a July 2021 incident at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas, when Clenney was arrested for domestic battery after throwing a glass at Obumseli’s head. She told Las Vegas police she had thrown items like plates and glasses at him before. The district attorney dropped the charge the following month.¹⁰ The state has sought to introduce testimony from “Williams rule” witnesses to establish a pattern of prior wrongdoing.¹¹

Held Without Bond

Clenney has been in custody the entire time. In December 2022, Miami-Dade Judge Laura Shearon Cruz denied bond after prosecutors argued she was a flight risk, citing her OnlyFans income of more than $900,000 in 2020 and over $1.8 million in 2021.¹² Later motions to reconsider, including ones filed in November 2024 and December 2025, were also denied.¹³

Why the Trial Has Kept Slipping

Two things have driven most of the delays: findings of prosecutorial misconduct that cost the state its lead attorney, and a run of witness no-shows.

In June 2024, Judge Cruz found the state had improperly accessed communications between the Clenney family and their attorneys through a shared family iCloud account. She wrote that prosecutors wore “prosecutorial blinders” by unilaterally concluding a crime-fraud exception applied when “no such exception exists,” and ruled the communications should have been submitted to the court for review rather than accessed directly.¹⁴ A related computer-hacking case against Clenney and her parents was dismissed after the privileged messages were excluded.¹⁵

In February 2025, the defense won permission to depose lead prosecutor Khalil Quinan under oath about his handling of the confidential iCloud data. The defense alleged Quinan had searched privileged “Team Courtney” communications covering defense theories, witness strategy, and attorney work product.⁸ Quinan stepped down from the case in March 2025, and the trial, originally set for December 2025, was reset to April 27, 2026.¹⁶

The defense has also alleged that officers instructed a civilian witness to delete photographs and video taken at the scene before EMS arrived, potentially destroying evidence of original blood spatter patterns and Clenney’s initial statements. It says prosecutors failed to disclose an eyewitness named Arthur Cup, who reportedly saw Obumseli attacking Clenney before the stabbing.¹⁷ The defense has sought dismissal and asked the State Attorney’s Office to recuse itself; no formal disqualification motion had been ruled on as of mid-2026.

The April 2026 date didn’t hold either. At an April 1 hearing, both sides filed a joint motion to continue after 15 to 16 Williams rule witnesses failed to appear for scheduled depositions. Judge Andrea Wolfson, now presiding, granted the continuance but warned it had to be the last, telling attorneys, “If we’re in the same position next time we come back and these witnesses are just not appearing… there’s going to come a time when it’s fish or cut bait.”¹¹ Outstanding defense motions to suppress evidence and prosecution expert evaluations added to the pretrial congestion.¹⁸

Where the Case Stands Now

At a June 1, 2026, pretrial hearing, the trial was set for the third week of August 2026. A prosecution expert was scheduled to evaluate Clenney on June 9, and the defense had more than eight depositions on the calendar in the days that followed. The defense also confirmed it had inspected the knives central to the case.¹

The Separate Wrongful Death Lawsuit

Beyond the criminal case, Obumseli’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in May 2023 against Clenney, the owner of the One Paraiso condo where the couple lived, the property management company, and the building’s security company. The family alleges Clenney was the aggressor and that building management failed to act despite knowing about a pattern of violent incidents; the suit seeks more than $50,000 in damages.¹⁹ It runs on its own track and does not depend on the outcome of the murder trial.

1
Court TV. Courtney Clenney’s Defense Inspects Knives Ahead of Trial
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NBC Miami. A Case of Self-Defense: OnlyFans Model Will Be Exonerated in Miami Murder, Attorney Says
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ABC News. Instagram Personality Charged With Murder Months After Allegedly Fatally Stabbing Boyfriend
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CBS News. Courtney Clenney, Model, Arrested on Murder Charge in Hawaii
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Hawaii Police Department. Social Media Model Courtney Clenney Arrested
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NewsNation. Clenney Attorney: Courtney Was the Real Victim
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Court TV. Courtney Clenney’s Attorneys Claim Abuse by Christian Obumseli
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NBC Miami. Attorneys for OnlyFans Model Accused of Murder Allowed to Question Prosecutor
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KATV. Social Media Model Accused of Killing Boyfriend Made $1.8M Last Year
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Fox 5 Vegas. OnlyFans Model Accused of Killing Boyfriend in Miami Had Prior Domestic Violence Incident in Las Vegas
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Court TV. Courtney Clenney’s Murder Trial Delayed Until Summer
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CBS News Miami. Courtney Clenney Hearing: Model Accused of Killing Boyfriend Denied Bond
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Court TV. Courtney Clenney Case Coverage
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Court TV. Computer Hacking Case Dismissed Against Courtney Clenney, Parents
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Local 10 News. Computer Crimes Charges Dropped Against OnlyFans Model Courtney Clenney, Parents
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Miami Herald. Courtney Clenney Murder Trial Gets New Date
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Court TV. Clenney Lawyers Say State Destroyed Evidence, Failed to Disclose Witness
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Real Radio 92.1. Courtney Clenney’s Second-Degree Murder Trial Delayed Again
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NBC Miami. Family of Slain Boyfriend of Miami OnlyFans Model Files Wrongful Death Suit