The attorney for Caleb Flynn's former mistress is pushing back against suspicions that she helped plot the murder of the former "American Idol" contestant's wife, telling Fox News Digital that disturbing messages about wanting Ashley Flynn dead were not evidence that his client took part in the Tipp City, Ohio , killing.
Dayton defense attorney Nick Gounaris, who represents Alleigha Botner, said investigators reviewed her messages with Flynn, cellphone records and surveillance footage as they worked to determine whether she had any involvement in the crime.
Botner's secret affair with Flynn became a central part of his trial, where jurors heard exchanges about killing his wife, including a suggestion to hire someone to do it. Flynn was ultimately convicted on Sept. 29 of murdering Ashley and sentenced on Monday to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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"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 News Digital. "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."
Gounaris said he initially worried Botner could become a target of the investigation after she spoke to police without an attorney and was not entirely forthcoming about her relationship with Flynn.
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Investigators had begun uncovering the affair while examining the Feb. 16 shooting at the couple's Tipp City home, where prosecutors said Flynn shot his wife twice in the back of the head before staging a break-in.
Botner eventually acknowledged the relationship, but her family became concerned about her legal exposure and contacted Gounaris, who began speaking with investigators to determine whether she was a witness or potential suspect.
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"As a defense attorney, my first reaction is, wait a minute, we've got to be very careful ... we've got to be concerned that she might be a target here," Gounaris said. "So ... let me bring her into the office. Let's protect her. Let me now be her advocate. Let me speak with investigators and let me then determine, you know, where this is going."
As more evidence emerged, Gounaris said, investigators increasingly treated Botner as a witness, and nothing they uncovered suggested she participated in Ashley's murder.
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Jurors heard that Flynn and Botner exchanged over 107, 000 messages during their affair, including conversations in which Flynn repeatedly expressed a desire to kill his wife. In one message, Flynn said he had stayed awake thinking of ways to kill Ashley without going to jail.
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Gounaris acknowledged the exchanges were ugly but argued that messages discussing Ashley's death represented only a small fraction of their conversations and largely occurred months before the killing.
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Some of the most troubling exchanges came just hours before Ashley was killed, when Flynn told Botner, "It's happening," and she responded, "You're about to be free."
Gounaris said the messages were about Flynn's plans to divorce his wife, explaining that the pair had stopped communicating for roughly a month after Botner ended their relationship in January because Flynn repeatedly failed to leave Ashley.
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Flynn contacted her again shortly before the murder, claiming he was finally preparing to seek a divorce and disclose the affair to church leadership, Gounaris explained.
The renewed conversations included roughly 250 messages discussing divorce, custody, employment and what would happen if Flynn left his marriage, he said. Botner even researched divorce-related questions using ChatGPT and sent Flynn screenshots.
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"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.
He maintained that Botner believed Flynn was preparing to leave his wife, not kill her, an explanation she also gave during her testimony.
But questions about Botner's conduct extended beyond the messages themselves.
During the trial, jurors heard about efforts to conceal the affair, including discussions about deleting communications and replacing phones. Gounaris argued those conversations were motivated by concerns that the relationship could jeopardize Flynn's chances of gaining custody of his daughters during a divorce.
"What are they covering up?" Gounaris asked. "They're covering up what the relationship was. So she was explaining to him, 'You need to go get a new phone, you need to delete this app. We ... have not had these conversations.'"
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The attorney also offered his own theory about why Flynn killed Ashley , suggesting the former church music leader may have realized that ending his marriage would cost him the comfortable life he had built.
Flynn worked for his father-in-law's company, had two daughters and held a prominent role at his church. Gounaris believes the prospect of losing those things may have pushed him toward a fatal decision.
"He had a girlfriend. He liked having a girlfriend. He had a wife. He liked having his wife, he liked his children, he liked his job, he liked his income, he liked his ... he liked it all," Gounaris said. "On the early morning of Feb. 16, something in his mind said, 'Wait a minute, this is not going to work out for me. I'm not going to have my job. I'm going to be thrown out of the church,' and something happened that caused him to end the life of his wife."
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Unlike prosecutors, who argued Flynn had planned the murder, Gounaris suggested the killing may have resulted from a decision made that night.
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"I think it was something that occurred right at that moment at night," he said. "I think that he did things. I think he was sloppy with how he did things."
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That assessment remains the attorney's theory. Jurors convicted Flynn of aggravated murder and eight other counts after roughly 2½ hours in the deliberation room. Flynn continued to maintain his innocence at sentencing, telling the court he did not kill his wife.
Flynn's attorneys filed a notice of appeal Wednesday in Miami County court, two days after he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
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Flynn was admitted to the state prison system Wednesday and is being held at the Correctional Reception Center in Orient, Ohio, according to Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records.
Gounaris said he believes Botner's lack of involvement was established through the investigation and that she now faces the difficult task of rebuilding her life after the affair and her testimony became public.
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He acknowledged that Botner bears responsibility for the relationship and the hateful things she said about Ashley, but rejected the suggestion that those actions made her responsible for the murder.
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"Look, she'll take full responsibility for her actions," Gounaris said. "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 did on the 16 th of February 2026. That's what the public has wrong," he continued. "She takes full responsibility for her actions, but not what he was convicted of."