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Former American Idol contestant Caleb Flynn is legally barred from collecting the $100,000 life insurance policy of his late wife, Ashley Flynn, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Ohio this week.
Flynn was convicted of murdering Ashley earlier this year, and he is now serving a life sentence. The insurance money, however, has sparked a brand new court fight.
Banner Life Insurance Company filed the lawsuit on Tuesday, November 10, in Ohio federal court, TMZ reports.
The insurer is asking a judge to decide who should receive the money from Ashley’s policy.
The case is an interpleader lawsuit, a type of filing in which a company holding disputed money asks the court to sort out who is entitled to it.
There’s a complicated wrinkle in the paperwork. According to the court documents, Flynn was listed as both the owner and the sole beneficiary of the policy when it was issued in March 2016.
That was nearly 10 years before he killed Ashley. No backup beneficiary was ever named.
Under normal circumstances, that would mean the payout goes straight to Flynn. But the insurance company points to Ohio’s “slayer statute” in its filing.
The law prevents anyone convicted of murder from profiting off the death of their victim. That means Flynn cannot legally collect a penny of the money.
According to the filing, the payout has now grown to more than $100,000 once interest and premium refunds are added in.
Banner wants to deposit the funds with the court and let a judge decide where they should go from there.
The lawsuit names a long list of family members as defendants. Flynn’s parents and his brother are included, as are Ashley’s parents, her sister and her brother-in-law.
The couple’s two daughters are also named in the suit.
The insurer is not accusing any of the relatives of wrongdoing. The company simply wants the court to determine who has a legal claim to the money.
The daughters have already been through an unimaginable ordeal. They delivered emotional statements that were read aloud at their father’s sentencing in October.
Both girls tore into Flynn in those statements. One of them declared that she would never visit him in prison.
Flynn was sentenced to life behind bars without the possibility of parole. He was convicted of shooting Ashley twice in the back of the head and staging the scene to make it look like a break-in.
Ashley died in February. Her husband’s trial played out in an Ohio courtroom over the following months, and it drew plenty of attention thanks to his past as a reality TV singer.
In September, Flynn was sentenced to life in prison after jurors convicted him of aggravated murder.
Flynn broke down in tears in court as each juror individually confirmed the guilty verdict.
The trial featured some truly bizarre testimony. Prosecutors detailed Flynn’s relationship with his mistress, Alleigha Botner, and played love songs about her in the courtroom.
The songs were reportedly created using artificial intelligence. Investigators found the audio files on Flynn’s phone while looking into Ashley’s death.
Joseph Wilhelm, a special agent with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, testified that the files appeared to be AI-generated and were connected to Flynn’s affair with Botner.
There were reportedly two versions of one song, recorded in different keys, with lyrics that matched notes found on his phone.
One song described the first time Flynn saw Botner as “love at first sight.” Another referenced the “third of every month,” which Botner explained in her testimony was tied to the start of their relationship.
Those details helped paint a damning picture for jurors. The guilty verdict followed soon after.
Now the fight has shifted from the criminal courtroom to a civil one.
A federal judge will decide who receives Ashley’s life insurance money, and is expected to enforce the slayer statute to keep Flynn from collecting any of it.
We will have further updates on this developing story as new information becomes available.
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