Courtney Clenney appears in an Aug. 26, 2022 booking photo. (Image via the Miami-Dade County Jail.)
A trial date has been set for the OnlyFans and Instagram model charged with second-degree murder in connection with the bloody death of her boyfriend.
Courtney Clenney, 26, known online by the name Courtney Tailor, will face a jury on Dec. 19 at 9:30 a.m., according to a court docket in Miami-Dade County, Florida.
During a Wednesday morning hearing, Clenney’s attorney reaffirmed the defendant’s not guilty plea entered previously in writing on Aug. 15.
The defendant herself was not present during the two-minute-long hearing, FOX News reported.
Clenney remains incarcerated at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center in Miami, according to online jail records reviewed by Law&Crime. She has been held at the facility without bond since being extradited from Hawaii last week, the records show.
Clenney stabbed her boyfriend Christian Tobechukwu “Toby” Obumseli, 27, back on Sun., April 3, fatally cutting his subclavian artery, prosecutors have said.
Those facts do not appear to be in dispute. The heart of the matter is whether Clenney acted in self-defense; her attorney claims she did. Prosecutors say her story doesn’t add up.
“We are completely shocked at Courtney’s arrest based upon the clear evidence of self defense in this matter,” Clenney’s defense attorney Frank Prieto told Law&Crime via email earlier this month. “Obumseli attacked her and choked her that evening; Courtney had no choice but to meet force with force.”
Prieto called the charge “unfounded and baseless” and said his client was “clearly defending herself.”
Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, however, said on Aug. 11 that Clenney’s proffered version of the events doesn’t make sense when compared against the evidence.
According to Rundle, an autopsy determined that a “forceful downward thrust” of a knife caused a wound about three inches — or eight centimeters — deep in Obumseli’s chest.
The authorities allege that the force necessary to create a fatal wound of that depth likely came from an up-close-and-personal thrust of a blade.
That is a problem, Rundle has posited, because Clenney allegedly told law enforcement officers that she threw the knife at Obumseli from a distance of about 10 feet away.
Rundle said the victim and the defendant shared an “extremely tempestuous and combative relationship” that was so rancorous that it attracted significant attention from neighbors, security officials, and management at the luxury apartment building where the couple lived.
Management at the facility even considered evicting the couple “because of these many noise complaints,” Rundle indicated at a press conference on Aug. 11.
Rundle also presented surveillance camera video from an elevator in the luxury apartment complex where the ill-fated couple lived and where the stabbing subsequently occurred in the couple’s unit.
Courtney Clenney appears in an earlier mugshot (left) and in a freeze frame of a video (right) provided by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office in Florida.
That video shows a melee between Clenney and Obumseli. Both Rundle and an attorney for Obumseli’s family said the video shows Clenney as a primary aggressor.
Clenney had a “history of being the aggressor throughout the relationship,” said Attorney Larry Handfield, who is representing the stabbing victim’s family.
“What you saw in the elevator was just an isolated glimpse of a pattern of conduct,” Handfield added.
Prieto, Clenney’s attorney, has questioned whether the video would be admissible in her upcoming trial.
Prieto did not respond to a Law&Crime request for comment about the upcoming trial date on Wednesday.
A copy of some of the charging documents in the matter is here: