MIAMI (Court TV) — In an unusual turn of events, the defense attorney representing OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney was called to the stand to testify about his relationship with his client and her parents.
Courtney Clenney sits in court ahead of a pretrial hearing on April 23, 2024. (Court TV)
Clenney is charged with murdering her boyfriend, Christian Obumseli, who was stabbed to death inside their Miami apartment in 2022. In February, the case against Clenney expanded to include her parents, as all three were charged with illegally accessing the victim’s laptop.
READ MORE: Courtney Clenney’s parents file motions to suppress and dismiss
The laptop was the central focus of a hearing on Tuesday, where Clenney’s attorney, Frank Prieto, testified. Prieto testified to his representation of Clenney, as well as her parents, and said that a number of conversations on the device were covered by attorney-client privilege. A separate set of attorneys representing Clenney and her parents argued that the laptop was never illegally accessed because Clenney knew the passwords and immediately gave the password to police when asked. Clenney’s attorneys have also maintained that nothing was changed or altered on the laptop after it was found — and have noted that police left the device behind after searching the couple’s apartment as part of their investigation.
Frank Prieto was called to testify at a hearing in Courtney Clenney’s case on April 23, 2024. (Pool/Court TV)
“Things have taken a turn for the bizarre,” Prieto told Court TV’s Julie Grant on Wednesday. “If you told me in the beginning of this case I would be testifying at a hearing about my attorney-client relationship I would have said, ‘No way.’ It’s bizarre. I think this highlights the issue that the prosecution has done some things here that are not above board.”
Sabrina Puglisi, Prieto’s co-counsel, told Court TV that they plan to file a motion to remove the State Attorney’s Office from prosecuting the case because of, not only what they have termed “vindictive prosecution,” but also an alleged violation of attorney-client privilege. Clenney’s attorneys said that when the prosecution served a warrant to access her iCloud, they accessed privileged chats.
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“[Prosecutors] had access to all of our work product, all of our privileged communications (sic). There’s no question about it: they admit there was a relationship with an attorney and a client in this case and that was all our work product. How can that same State Attorney’s Office represent the State of Florida? So that all just delays everything, unfortunately, while she sits in jail.”
The judge reserved ruling on the motions argued on Tuesday. No trial date has been set for Clenney’s murder trial.
