The mistress of a former American Idol contestant has rejected claims that she helped the singer arrange his wife’s killing, despite sending messages in which she said she wanted the woman “gone.”
Nick Gounaris, the attorney for Alleigha Botner, told Fox News Digital that her messages did not make her an accomplice to Caleb Flynn.
Flynn, 40, was convicted on September 29 of murdering his wife, Ashley, by shooting her in the head as she slept in their marital bed at their Ohio home on February 16. He was sentenced Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
The former pastor killed Ashley after beginning an affair with Botner, who worked at the church where both were members of the worship team.
More than 100,000 text messages exchanged during the couple’s approximately 18-month affair became central evidence at Flynn’s trial.
“Look, she’ll take full responsibility for her actions,” Botner’s lawyer, Nick 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 that Caleb committed on February 16, 2026. That’s what the public has wrong. She takes full responsibility for her actions, but not for what he was convicted of,” he added.
An attorney for Alleigha Botner (pictured) told Fox News Digital that she denies allegations that she helped Caleb Flynn murder his wife.
Flynn, 40, was convicted on September 29 of murdering his wife, Ashley, whom he shot in the head while she slept. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Crying Mistress Exposed
Botner cried during the trial as she was required to read one disturbing exchange 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 statement: “I want to kill her, Caleb. It’s so bad.”
Flynn replied, “That makes two of us.”
In another exchange, Flynn allegedly asked Botner, “Please hire someone to take douche out. I need you,” using a derogatory nickname the pair had given Ashley.
“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 him going 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 directly telling him 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.
Twisted Preacher Promised To Ditch WIFE AND KIDS
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.
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.
Chilling Last Message Before Wife’s Murder Exposed
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.
