Courtney Clenney, the OnlyFans model charged with murdering her boyfriend, is being sued by his family for wrongful death. According to the lawsuit, filed March 17 and updated on Friday, Clenney is liable financially to Obumseli’s estate for his death, because she intentionally stabbed him, causing the family mental pain and suffering and depriving them of his support and services in the future. Clenney’s attorney has said she will fight the case.
Last April, Christian Obumseli, known as Toby to his loved ones, died of a single stab wound to the upper chest in the luxury seaside apartment building he shared with Clenney in Miami, Florida. Although Clenney, through her lawyer, admitted within days to killing him, she claimed she had acted in self-defense. For months, no one was arrested in Obumseli’s homicide. Last August, Clenney was charged with his murder. The State Attorney claimed she was the “aggressor” in an abusive relationship with Obumseli. She has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial.
According to Michael Haggard, a lawyer representing the family of Obumseli in the lawsuit, several Miami neighbors of the couple reported observing Clenney threatening Obumseli before his death. “We’ve got over 10 witnesses, not only from this building, from adjacent buildings, that are like, this woman is absolutely screaming at the top of her lungs, every curse word you can think [of], threatening this guy,” he says.
None of the neighbors reported Obumseli acting aggressively, according to Haggard. “All the witnesses say that he was under control,” he says, “That he was just trying to calm her down, he’s trying to give her a second chance. That’s what happens sometimes in what I call reverse domestic violence, if you will, because obviously, we know most of the time, it’s a man.”
Clenney is being sued for her role in the alleged murder of Obumseli. According to an amended complaint filed on Friday and reviewed by Rolling Stone, the family is suing Clenney for one count of battery in Obumseli’s death. On April 3, 2022, the complaint says, Clenney “intentionally touched, struck, made contact with, and/or stabbed Christian Obumseli against his will. As a result of Defendant Courtney Clenney’s intentional actions, Christian Obumseli died.”
Frank Prieto, a lawyer for Clenney, tells Rolling Stone Clenney’s innocence will prevail. “The evidence in both the criminal and civil case will show that Courtney’s actions were taken to defend herself from an imminent attack by Obumseli,” he says. “Courtney is a survivor of domestic violence.”
In the month following Obumseli’s death, an investigation by Rolling Stone revealed that multiple friends who knew the couple claimed Clenney had been abusive toward Obumseli and not the other way around. Since the criminal case against Clenney began, evidence of Clenney’s alleged abusive behavior toward Obumseli has become public, from surveillance footage released by the State Attorney showing her shoving and hitting him in the elevator of their apartment building; to phone recordings taken by Obumseli of Clenney calling him the N-word and telling him to “shut the fuck up, bitch,” when he pointed out to her that she’d hit him. A second investigation after Clenney’s arrest found that neighbors at the couple’s previous home in Austin, Texas, had witnessed her aggressive behavior toward Obumseli, as well.
In the current civil action, Obumseli’s family is seeking $50,000 in damages, although Prieto claimed to TMZ Thursday that Clenney has no assets. “She obviously had assets,” Haggard says, referring to Clenney’s successful influencing and OF career. “We fully anticipate she’s going to try to fraudulently move those assets.”
In part because of Clenney’s allegedly escalating violent behavior, the family is also seeking damages from the owners, condo association, management, and security company of the complex, One Paraiso, claiming the business entities did not do enough to prevent a crime that they saw coming. “When there is a reasonably foreseeable crime…then that property can be held responsible for not having adequate security,” Haggard says. (The four companies named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
The companies associated with the condo building, Haggard claims, knew about Clenney’s “unbelievable behavior” before she killed Obumseli. According to police call records which Haggard shared with Rolling Stone, in the three months leading up to Obumseli’s death, officers were called to the unit eight times — five times for a disturbance, twice for an “information report,” and once for a “conduct investigation.” “Each time, she’s absolutely hysterical, screaming, doing everything,” he says. He also cites the elevator footage, which he says showed Clenney “assaulting” Obumseli. The recording was taken less than two months before Obumbeli’s death.
Although the building owner was in the process of evicting Clenney at the time of the stabbing due to unpaid rent, Haggard says the company should have taken steps to expedite the process due to Clenney’s alleged danger as a tenant. “In a lot of these cases, the landlord will say, ‘Well, we couldn’t do anything, because it takes a while to evict someone,’” he says. “It certainly does, sometimes, when it’s only money. But when someone is becoming a danger, there are exceptions to evict someone. If someone’s becoming a threat to other people, you have a duty to get them out of there.”
According to the civil complaint, the damages Obumseli’s estate is requesting would cover his medical and funeral expenses. Haggard says it’s about more than that to the family, however. “Who cares about funeral expenses?” he says. “They lost their 27-year-old child who had an incredible future in front of him.”
Clenney’s lawyer Prieto also speculated to TMZ that Obumseli’s estate was going after the business entities associated with One Paraiso to try to get a “huge payout” from their insurance policies.
Asked about the “payout” alleged by Prieto, Haggard says, “Losing your child is the worst thing that can happen to any human being. They would do anything to go back to the day before and [have] this never happen and him come back to Texas.” He adds, “This is about justice, and he should probably concentrate on justice rather than making comments like that toward the victim’s family.”
