CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Claiming his client “is ready to fight back,” Charleston attorney Ben Salango has agreed to represent Parkersburg city finance director Ashley Flowers.
Salango said Flowers has endured threats to her job and her life since news broke of her affair with embattled Parkersburg Mayor Bob Newell.
Flowers apologized in a statement issued in February, but Newell has not confirmed the existence of any such relationship.
“She has been really ridiculed for months over this. She acknowledges what she did was inappropriate and she made a mistake, but what happened after that is just beyond anything I’ve ever seen,” Salango said during an appearance Tuesday on MetroNews “Talkline.”
“It’s cruel some of the things she’s been subjected t, and she’s not taking it very well.”
Threats against Flowers, now on leave from her post, have been made online and via text, Salango claimed. The attorney would not identify the sources of those threats, but he confirmed Flowers recorded some of the phone conversations released online in recent weeks—claiming she did so out of fear.
“She believed that things were going to take a nasty turn and she was concerned about her job, she was concerned about her family, about her children,” Salango said. “So she decided to record them just in case and, quite frankly, I’m glad she did.
“She’ll need them at some point to protect herself.”
In one of those recordings, a person who is allegedly Newell asked Flowers, “Once this goes public, what’s our explanation for this? What’s our story going to be?”
According to Salango, Flowers did not make public the recordings, which were eventually posted online. He said her computer was compromised by a known person he declined to identify.
A criminal investigation is ongoing.
Salango is representing Flowers in civil matters that could possibly involve Newell and Parkersburg. However, any civil action on Flowers’ behalf may not be imminent.
“There’s so many moving parts to the investigation and so many proceedings going on at one time, we’re in no rush,” Salango said.
Additionally, Flowers is facing separate child endangerment charges for allegedly leaving her 22-month-old twins in a cold car for more than 30 minutes while she was at the Grand Central Mall earlier this year.
Though Salango is not representing Flowers in that case, he said those charges would be “vigorously contested.”
As for Newell, the state Supreme Court has appointed a three-judge panel to hear testimony in June on a petition calling for his removal office for “unethical conduct.”
The mayor has called reports of an affair with Flowers “exaggerated” and denied any illegal activities.