MIAMI (Court TV) — The lead prosecutor has withdrawn from her case, but Courtney Clenney’s attorneys have asked a judge to disqualify the entire Miami-Dade State Attorney’s office from her murder trial.
Courtney Clenney is pictured in court on June 26, 2024. (Court TV)
Clenney, who went by the name Courtney Tailor on social media platforms like Instagram and OnlyFans, is charged with murdering her boyfriend, Christian Obumseli, at their South Florida apartment. Clenney told police that she acted in self-defense when she threw the knife that killed Obumseli.
Prosecutors have been aggressive in pursuing the case against Clenney and even filed charges against her parents, claiming that they illegally accessed the victim’s laptop. Those charges were later dropped after a judge determined that prosecutors had violated attorney-client privilege between the Clenneys and their attorneys.
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Now, Clenney’s attorneys say the violations of attorney-client privilege extend well beyond the scope they initially believed. Assistant State Attorney Khalil Quinan, who had been the lead prosecutor on the case, stepped down after the defense found that he had not only reviewed but also shared a document titled “Courtney Checklist of Things to Do—Privileged.docx” sent to Clenney by one of her attorneys. That document was revealed by a records request made by a third party.
At a hearing on April 30, Assistant State Attorneys Shawn Abuhoff and Kathleen Hoague, who now represent the prosecution in Clenney’s case, swore under oath that they had never reviewed the document or any other privileged material. But in a motion to disqualify the prosecution filed immediately after the hearing, Clenney’s attorneys argue that Abuhoff and Hoague’s statements do not insulate them from disqualification.
“Their continued participation in this matter and formal endorsement of legal positions derived from privileged material, presents an appearance of impropriety that cannot be overlooked,” Clenney’s attorneys said in the motion. “Florida law does not require actual misconduct by each individual prosecutor to warrant disqualification — the failure to intervene, supervise, or filter, and the ratification of tainted conduct, are sufficient to create an intolerable risk of prejudice and erode public confidence in the fairness of the procedings. … What is of paramount importance is that Courtney Clenney receives a fair and impartial trial.”
A judge will hear arguments on the motion on May 22. No trial date has been set for Clenney, who remains behind bars.
