The lawyer for an OnlyFans model accused of killing her partner has claimed there is new evidence suggesting she killed her boyfriend in self-defense and that she was a victim of abuse.
Courtney Clenney, 26, allegedly murdered her boyfriend Christian Obumseli in their Miami apartment on April 3, 2022.
Clenney, who claimed she stabbed him in self-defense, was arrested for manslaughter four months after his death – and last month his family filed a lawsuit against her to cover his medical and funeral expenses.
Photos from the 2022 crime scene showed a pool of blood at an entrance to the couple’s apartment, the bloodied knife supposedly used in the attack, and Clenney drenched in Obumseli’s blood.
Now Sabrina Puglisi and Frank Prieto, Clenney’s attorneys, have claimed there are three cases they will use as evidence at trial to suggest that their client was indeed a victim of abuse.
Courtney Clenney, 26, allegedly murdered her boyfriend Christian Obumseli in their Miami apartment on April 3, 2022
Clenney was arrested for manslaughter four months after his death, claiming she stabbed him in self-defense
Courtney Clenney talks to her lawyer Frank Prieto at a detention hearing, Tuesday 15 November 2022
They say one of the cases was caught on Las Vegas police bodycam, with an officer saying he heard her say “hands off” – allegedly speaking of Obumseli.
The lawyers say they then found clumps of her hair on the floor in their room.
Puglisi told Law&Crime: “The first is in Las Vegas in 2021, where she actually called security and the security officer’s interview by the police.
“And you can see it on the police officer’s body camera, he says he heard her say, ‘Don’t touch me,’ and when they got to the room, there were clumps of hair on the floor.”
That’s what Clenney’s lawyer Frank Prieto told Law & Crime“I think the fact that the detective on this case didn’t arrest her for four months while they were investigating the case. It’s significant.
Speaking of the clip of his client beating her boyfriend in an elevator, Prieto said, “What the media has portrayed is a snapshot.
Given her in a mug shot from her arrest, Clenney is charged with second-degree murder
“If you really look at the first few seconds of that video, which gets cut short in most news media cycles… what you see is basically that she doesn’t want him to get in the elevator to go upstairs.
“There is only one key fob to enter this apartment.”
He also said there is no doubt that both the boyfriend and girlfriend acted inappropriately during their relationship, Law&Crime reports.
Meanwhile, Michael Haggard, representing Obumseli’s family, claims forensic evidence “is clear that Christian was in no way an aggressor.”
He said, “There is one aggressor in this case.”
Clenney is still in jail awaiting trial.
Security footage taken from the building’s elevator two months before the murder also showed Clenney visibly attacking her boyfriend, who didn’t seem to fight back
Released 911 audio after the stabbing, revealing that Clenney said to her former lover, “Honey, I’m so sorry” after she allegedly stabbed a knife in his shoulder.
She didn’t tell the operator she stabbed him, but sobbed to him that she was sorry.
In the background we hear Obumseli shouting: ‘I can’t feel my arm.’
Graphic case photos have revealed that she pinned her much taller boyfriend inches above a tattoo of her name in cursive on the left side of his chest.
Obumseli’s family said at the time that it showed she intended to kill him but regretted it once the knife was stabbed in him.
“It shows her state of mind. She says she’s sorry because she realizes what she’s done. She’s not saying, “I defended myself,” said his family’s attorney, Larry Hadfield.
Obumseli was rushed to hospital, but he died of his injuries.
