The parents of a onetime OnlyFans model and influencer accused of murdering her boyfriend with a knife have been arrested in Austin, Texas, on out-of-state felony warrants for computer crimes.
Deborah Lyn Clenney, 57, and Kim Dewayne Clenney, 60, are currently being detained in the Travis County Jail on a hold for another agency, according to Travis County Sheriff’s Office records reviewed by Law&Crime. Deputies arrested the couple on Tuesday morning.
Courtney Clenney, 28, also known online as Courtney Tailor, stands accused of murder in the second degree over the stabbing death of her boyfriend Christian Tobechukwu “Toby” Obumseli, 27, a cryptocurrency trader with whom she lived in a posh Miami apartment. Clenney maintains she stabbed Obumseli in self-defense. She is also being charged over the computer-related allegations.
The arrest warrants in the case against Clenney and her parents, obtained by Law&Crime, were applied for by the Miami-Dade Police Department on Jan. 26, endorsed by three assistant state’s attorneys, and issued by the 11th Judicial Circuit in the Sunshine State.
The three members of the Clenney family now stand accused of one count each of unauthorized access or excessive access to a computer.
Florida law makes it illegal to “willfully, knowingly, and without authorization or exceeding authorization” access or cause to be “accessed any computer, computer system, computer network, or electronic device with knowledge that such access is unauthorized or the manner of use exceeds authorization.”
The charges relate to a laptop that belonged to Obumseli, the warrants allege. Clenney allegedly helped her parents access the computer, with the aid of her attorneys, by way of a group chat in which the elder Clenneys and four attorneys participated.
That group chat contains some 4,230 messages spanning the period between September 2022 — when the laptop was first discussed — and May 2023, but leaves “approximately four months of messages unaccounted for” due to “unknown reasons,” the warrants say.
Since Clenney’s parents are witnesses in the murder case, they were not and could not be represented by her attorneys, the warrant says.
“Accordingly, there is no attorney-client privilege contained within the messages,” the warrants read. “Additionally, because the conversations were sought or obtained to enable or aid the commission of a crime, there is no attorney-client privilege to the conversations.”
Miami law enforcement alleges the group chat shows Clenney’s father asking the attorneys for “passwords for the laptop” and “laptop PIN ideas so we can try them” on two days in September 2022.
In response to the initial queries, Clenney’s lead attorney, Frank Prieto, allegedly responds, respectively: “Yes. Sabrina and I have a list. We will provide,” and “I have a couple that I can forward to you tomorrow.”
Later that September, Clenney’s father requested “any PIN/passwords we can try before you see her tomorrow,” in the group chat, the warrants allege. In response to that third question, attorney Sabrina Puglisi allegedly replies: “She didn’t have anything for me.”
The warrants identify Prieto as “Individual 1” and Puglisi as “Individual 2.” Clenney’s father is identified in the warrants as “Subject 2” and Clenney’s mother is identified as “Subject 3.”
“Individual 1, apparently in response to Subject 2’s multiple inquiries for passwords, then began sending several back-to-back messages to the group chat,” the warrants read. “Individual 1 sent 6 messages with possible passwords.”
Eventually, the participants in the group chat learn from Clenney’s father that “the PIN is actually a 4 digit number” and that “Letters are not able to be entered,” according to the warrants. Kim Clenney then allegedly asks Puglisi to ask his daughter “for options.”
On Sept. 30, 2022, Clenney’s father allegedly sent the following message to the group chat: “Hell yeah! That PIN worked!”
“Kim,” Prieto allegedly replied. “Hold off on going through the computer please. I don’t want to turn you into a witness just yet if you find something useful. But that is great news and makes this easie.”
The discussion in the group chat next turns to custody of the laptop, the warrants allege. During this discussion, Puglisi allegedly tells Clenney’s father, “we don’t want you accessing files because the State Attorneys could request their own independent analysis of the hard drive and accuse you of creating or modified files. That’s why I wanted to put a quick pause on that. Obviously I know you would not do that but we want to maintain that credibility.”
“I had barely opened it and was starting to poke around, but we started a video call so I stopped,” Kim Clenney allegedly replied. “Never opened a file, so I didn’t see anything.”
Eventually, Clenney’s mother drove from Austin to Dallas to give the laptop to Prieto in October 2022, the warrants allege. After that, the discussion in the group chat about the laptop allegedly stops for months. The warrants say Prieto allegedly gave the laptop to an IT consultant “for unlawful access” in July 2023. The warrants, however, say they do not have evidence to suggest the consultant could have known he was not authorized to access the laptop.
Law&Crime reached out to Prieto and Puglisi for comment on this story but no response was immediately forthcoming.
In a statement obtained by CBS News, attorneys for the Clenney family rubbished the charges.
“We’re extremely surprised and very concerned about the arrest of the Clenney family; this could be an example of prosecutorial overreach and misconduct,” the statement reads. ” “We believe the Clenney family has been targeted with some trumped-up charges to discredit them in the press and make their lives miserable. It stinks of a power play by prosecutors to control the narrative. This Thursday, the State is seeking a gag order in the case. Now they’ve gone after Courtney’s Mom and Dad in such a way that requires them to spend considerable time in jail without bond.”
Read the warrants for Deborah and Kim Clenney here and here.
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