The lawyers for OnlyFans model Courtney Clenney, who allegedly killed her Nigerian boyfriend during a fight in their luxury Miami apartment, have claimed they have new evidence she acted in self-defense.
Clenny, 26, is charged with second-degree murder in the April 3, 2022, death of her lover Christian Obumseli, 28, whom she has claimed was attacking her before she plunged a knife into his chest.
Her lawyers, Sabrina Puglisi and Frank Prieto now claim they will use new evidence at trial as evidence to prove the social media star was a victim of abuse and acted in self-defense.
‘The first is in Las Vegas in 2021 where she actually called security and the interview of the security officer by police,’ Puglisi told Law and Crime.
‘And you can see it in the body camera of the police officer, he says he overheard her saying, ‘Get your hands off me,’ and when they got up to the room clumps of her hair were on the ground,’ she said.
Prieto also noted the amount of time it took police to arrest his client after her lover’s bloody death.
‘I think that the fact that the detective in this matter did not arrest her for four months while they investigated the case — it’s very telling,’ Prieto told the news outlet.
Footage taken from the couple’s elevator shows previous domestic disputes in which Clenney seemed to be acting as an aggressor and striking him.
‘What the media has portrayed is a snapshot in time,’ Puglisi told Law and Crime.
‘If you actually look at the first few seconds of that video, which is cut off in most news media cycles…what you see is actually she does not want him to come into the elevator to go upstairs.
‘There is only one key fob in order to be able to get up into this apartment,’ she added.
Since 2020, Clenney has made over $3 million from OnlyFans and boasts more than 2 million Instagram followers.
She was recorded threatening Obumseli’s life just one month before the stabbing.
In December, Clenney broke down in tears as detectives informed her of Obumseli’s death.
Her lawyers have pointed out that she had asked for a restraining order against Obumseli days before the fatal fight and a security guard in their building told police he once saw him rush at her.
Last week, Obumseli’s cousin and legal team told reporters there were six calls related to disturbances involving the couple between January and March 2022.
‘I can’t feel my arm. I can’t my feel my arm,’ Obumseli can be heard saying in the 911 call she made to ask for help after he was stabbed in the torso, the Miami Herald reported.
People called 911 to report violence and threats, according to the lawyers, who claimed Clenney was the one at fault.
‘The forensic evidence is clear that Christian was not an aggressor in any way and that there’s one aggressor in this case,’ Obumseli’s family attorney Michael Haggard said, according to the outlet.
The late boyfriend’s cousin Karen Egbuna said: ‘We’ve lost so much just beyond Toby. My aunt has never been the same. She is marked with a sadness and anger and grief that will likely never go away.’
Last month, Obumseli’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Clenney to cover funeral costs and other expenses as a result of his death.
Clenney, who has pleaded not guilty, is in jail without bail awaiting trial, with a status conference set for July.
