A Miami OnlyFans model charged with murdering her boyfriend in 2022 was back in court Wednesday where a judge ruled to exclude a key piece of evidence in the case.
Judge Laura Cruz concluded the Miami-Dade prosecutors assigned to the Courtney Clenney case violated attorney-client privilege by accessing private family conversations with their attorneys.
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“The communication sought to be excluded by the parties is protected by attorney-client privilege and/or work product privilege," Cruz said. “This privilege was violated, albeit perhaps unknowingly, when the communication was read by prosecutors in this case."
COURTNEY CLENNEY CASE
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Clenney is facing a second-degree murder charge in the April 2022 fatal stabbing of boyfriend Christian Obumseli in the couple's Edgewater condo.
Earlier this year, prosecutors also charged Clenney’s parents, Kim Dewayne and Deborah Clenney, along with their daughter, for allegedly breaking into the victim’s laptop.
State attorneys gained access to Clenney’s father’s iCloud account where investigators found messages where the family was working with defense attorneys to try and guess passwords to access the laptop after Obumseli's death. Eventually they got in.
“The Defendants utilized their attorneys to commit the digital burglary of Christian’s computer, which is a crime,” prosecutors claimed.
Defense attorneys for the parents said the computer was a shared device between Clenney and Obumseli, and that the parents were authorized to access it.
The defense attorneys were not charged for breaking into the laptop, however all three Clenney family members were.
“Today, Judge Cruz granted our motion to exclude evidence, what that means, the state attorney’s office breached the attorney client privilege and that was unlawful," said Jude Faccidomo, a defense attorney representing the Clenney parents.
After a long battle, defense attorneys won on Wednesday after Cruz ruled the messages will be excluded.
“The proper remedy for this breach of privilege is exclusion of the communication from use in this case as evidence,” Cruz ruled.
Defense attorneys told NBC6 this ruling means that state attorneys might have no choice but to drop all charges related to allegedly breaking into the laptop.
The exclusion of the messages does not necessarily impact the homicide case, according to defense attorneys.
But because of Wednesday’s ruling, defense attorneys are asking for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office to recuse themselves from the Clenney case and have asked Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis assign a new prosecuting office.
This new ruling comes as the state attorney’s office faces multiple complaints from defense attorneys on their misconduct.
Earlier this year, Judge Andrea Ricker Wolfson removed two prosecutors from a death penalty case, citing misconduct.
Courtney Clenney, who went by the name Courtney Tailor on social media, including on OnlyFans, had more than 2 million Instagram followers at the time of Obumseli's death.
Clenney, now 28, remains behind bars while she awaits trial in the killing of Obumseli.
