The parents of a Miami social media model accused of fatally stabbing her boyfriend bonded out after being booked into the Miami-Dade jail Tuesday for allegedly accessing the boyfriend's laptop after the killing.
Kim Dewayne Clenney, 60, and Deborah Lyn Clenney, 57, were arrested in Texas on Jan. 30 on felony charges of unauthorized access to a computer or electronic device.
The couple, who are the parents of Courtney Clenney, were arrested in Travis County in Texas on charges filed by Miami-Dade Police and later released on bond.
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Records showed the parents were booked into the Miami-Dade jail just after 8 a.m. Tuesday. Both appeared in court after posting $5,000 bond each.
The attorneys representing the parents released a statement Tuesday about their arrests.
"The allegations are frivolous and entirely without merit. The charge is such an overreach by law enforcement that it seems clear they are being targeted for being witnesses in their daughter’s case," the statement read. "This misuse of power and show of force is simply an attempt to bully them and scare them off from supporting their daughter- which will never happen."
Courtney Clenney is also facing a new charge of unauthorized access to a computer, Miami-Dade jail records showed.
Arrest warrants released last week detailed the arrests of the parents of Courtney Clenney, who's accused of killing boyfriend Christian Obumseli.
The 27-year-old Obumseli was found fatally stabbed in the couple's luxury Edgewater condo on April 3, 2022, allegedly at the hands of Clenney.
Courtney Clenney, now 27, was arrested in August 2022 on a second-degree murder charge. She's being held without bond while she awaits trial.
According to the new warrants, many of Obumseli's belongings were taken from the condo after his killing.
Authorities who were investigating his killing had sought access to Courtney Clenney's cellphone, along with her iCloud account and the iCloud accounts of her parents, the warrants said.
They received search warrants for the iCloud accounts and Apple complied, which gave investigators access to messages that included a group chat between Courtney Clenney's attorneys and her parents.
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Included in the chat were discussions about Obumseli's laptop and how to access it, including a reference to accessing the laptop using guessed passwords, the warrant said.
"Are there any PIN/passwords we can try before you see her tomorrow?" Kim Clenney wrote in one message, according to the warrants.
He later determined the PIN was a number and not letters and the next day wrote "Hell yeah! That PIN worked!" according to the warrants.
"Kim. 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," one of the attorneys wrote, according to the warrants.
Records showed the laptop was eventually turned in to the defense attorneys.
But Florida law says accessing a person's computer without their permission, or in Obumseli's case, the permission of his estate, is illegal.
