The mistress of a former American Idol contestant has rejected claims that she helped him plot the killing of his wife, despite sending messages saying she wanted the woman “gone.”
Nick Gounaris, an attorney for Alleigha Botner, told Fox News Digital that his client’s disturbing messages did not make her an accomplice to Caleb Flynn’s crime.
Flynn, 40, was found guilty on September 29 of murdering his wife, Ashley, by shooting her in the head as she slept in their Ohio home on February 16. He was sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
A former pastor, Flynn killed Ashley after beginning an affair with Botner, who worked at the church where both were members of the worship team.
The couple’s messages became central to the murder trial. Jurors were shown more than 100,000 texts exchanged during the pair’s approximately 18-month relationship.
“Look, she’ll take full responsibility for her actions,” Gounaris told Fox News Digital.
“The truth is that she had an affair with a married man and she said terrible things about that man’s wife. That’s what she did.
“What the public has wrong is that she was somehow involved in the planning or execution of the murder Caleb committed on February 16, 2026. That’s what the public has wrong. She accepts full responsibility for her own actions, but not for what he was convicted of,” he added.
An attorney for Alleigha Botner (pictured) told Fox News Digital that she denied allegations that she helped Caleb Flynn murder his wife
Flynn, 40, was convicted on September 29 of murdering his wife, Ashley, who was shot in the head while sleeping. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole
Botner became emotional during the trial when she was required to read one particularly disturbing exchange with Flynn aloud.
“Do you know how badly I want to say, ‘F it’ to any rules and any barriers and just love you with my entire heart for the rest of my life?” she wrote to Flynn in July 2025.
She then made a chilling confession: “I want to kill her, Caleb. It’s so bad.”
Flynn replied: “That makes two of us.”
In another exchange, Flynn allegedly asked Botner to arrange for someone to kill Ashley, using a derogatory nickname the pair had assigned to her: “Please hire someone to take douche out. I need you.”
“So tempting,” Botner replied.
Flynn allegedly told Botner in August that he had spent much of the previous night considering how Ashley could be killed without sending him to prison.
“I was up until 4am last night crying, literally thinking of ways to kill her and not go to jail,” he wrote.
Botner responded by clearly telling Flynn not to kill Ashley.
“I’m not asking that you take her life, obviously, because that’s not what you should do, and I know you actually wouldn’t,” she wrote.
‘But to make the divorce happen, it would change everything.’
Flynn is pictured as a contestant in the 2013 season of American Idol. He passed initial auditions but was knocked out in the Hollywood round of the contest
Flynn responded: ‘I’ll work on getting rid of her. Until then, I love you.’
In another September 2025 message, Flynn listed what he was prepared to sacrifice to be with his mistress, including his daughters.
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He said he was willing to risk his ‘daughters, a quarter-million-dollar salary job, a place to live, possibly a church I serve at, public shame and humiliation, and way more.’
Botner, meanwhile, repeatedly demanded that he leave Ashley.
‘Until she’s gone, I’m gone,’ she wrote in one ultimatum.
But under questioning from Flynn’s defense, Botner insisted the ominous language was about ending the marriage.
‘I always meant divorce,’ she testified.
‘I think the reason that she wasn’t charged is just because you say something, you still have to show that that person was somehow involved,’ Gounaris told Fox.
‘The evidence that was reviewed, the evidence that was developed, the evidence that they secured through all of these different avenues did not suggest anything that involved Alleigha Botner in the death of Ashley Flynn.’
Botner testified that she was just 20 when she met Flynn at Christian Life Center in Dayton in 2022, where she was an intern and he was in his mid-30s.
Their relationship became romantic in early 2024, she said.
Botner performs on state at the CLC church in September 2023. Her once married lover is seen behind her on the guitar
By the night before Ashley’s death, prosecutors said the secret relationship was reaching a decisive moment.
Botner sent Flynn information she had researched about divorce proceedings, custody, deleting messages and how Ashley could potentially prove her husband’s infidelity.
‘All of the communications that are contemporaneous with the time that he kills his wife all the way up to 12:45 in that morning – about an hour and 45 minutes… before he calls 911 – are all about divorce,’ Gounaris said.
Shortly before midnight, Flynn sent his mistress one final message.
‘Good night, tomorrow’s a big day. I’ve got to get to bed,’ he wrote. ‘I choose you, I’m about to be free.’
Hours later, Ashley was dead.
Botner testified that the timing immediately alarmed her.
‘Caleb, what’s going on? Were you involved? Is this real?’ she messaged Flynn on the morning of the killing.
She later deleted the message because she feared investigators would examine his phone and discover their affair, she admitted.
Botner initially told the FBI she did not believe Flynn had murdered his wife, but later changed her view, describing Ashley’s death as ‘way too much of a coincidence.’
Asked in court how she feels about her former lover now, her answer was far simpler.
‘I hate him.’
Flynn appeared on American Idol in 2013, telling TV viewers his wife had encouraged him to chase his dreams on the singing competition.