The former American Idol contestant’s alleged lover is rejecting claims that she helped arrange his wife’s killing, despite sending messages in which she said she wanted the woman “gone.”
Nick Gounaris, the attorney representing Alleigha Botner, told Fox News Digital that his client’s disturbing texts did not make her an accomplice to Caleb Flynn’s crime.
Flynn, 40, was found guilty on September 29 of killing his wife, Ashley. Prosecutors said he shot her in the head as she slept in the couple’s Ohio home on February 16. He received a life sentence without the possibility of parole on Monday.
The killing followed Flynn’s affair with Botner, who worked at the church where the pair participated on the worship team. Flynn had previously served as a pastor.
More than 100,000 messages exchanged during the couple’s approximately 18-month relationship were presented to jurors, making their communications a central focus of the murder trial.
“She will accept full responsibility for her own conduct,” Gounaris said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
“The reality is that she had an affair with a married man and made horrible statements about his wife. That is what she did,” he added.
But Gounaris said the public had drawn the wrong conclusion by suggesting Botner played a role in planning or carrying out Ashley Flynn’s murder on February 16, 2026. “She accepts responsibility for her actions, but not for the crime Caleb was convicted of,” he said.
An attorney for Alleigha Botner (Pictured) told Fox News Digital denied allegations that she helped Caleb Flynn murder his wife
Flynn, 40, was convicted on September 29 of murdering his wife, Ashley, who he shot in the head while sleeping. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole
Botner became visibly emotional during the proceedings when she was asked to read one particularly disturbing conversation between herself and Flynn.
In a message sent in July 2025, she described wanting to abandon every boundary and devote herself completely to Flynn for the rest of her life.
She then wrote a stark statement about Ashley: “I want to kill her, Caleb. It’s so bad.”
Flynn answered, “That makes two of us.”
In another exchange, Flynn allegedly asked Botner to hire someone to “take douche out,” a demeaning nickname the pair used for Ashley.
Botner replied that the idea was “so tempting.”
Flynn also allegedly told Botner in August that he had spent much of the previous night considering ways to kill Ashley while avoiding a prison sentence.
“I was up until 4am last night crying, literally thinking of ways to kill her and not go to jail,” he wrote.
According to the messages presented at trial, Botner then urged him not to harm Ashley.
“I’m not asking you to take her life, obviously, because that’s not what you should do, and I know you actually wouldn’t,” she responded.
‘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.
