'She's not a bad person,' relative says

SALISBURY, N.C. – The accused prostitute who a Cabarrus County commissioner allegedly paid for sex is disappointed that she’s also been arrested despite cooperating with authorities on the case, a family member says.

Coy C. Privette is accused of renting motel rooms and paying to have sex with 32-year-old Tiffany Denise Summers.

Privette, who is also a former state legislator and a retired Baptist minister, appeared at the Rowan County magistrate’s office on the charges around 8 a.m. Thursday.

He was charged with six counts of misdemeanor aiding and abetting prostitution by renting a hotel room and paying for sexual acts, according to State Bureau of Investigation Agent Kevin Canty.

He was released on a written promise to appear in court Aug. 22.

WCNC

Coy C. Privette

A family member of Summers, who talked to us on the condition that we not identify her, said the family is disappointed that Summers got charged in the case.

"She's not a bad person,” the woman said. “She's a real good person, she just had some flaws in her life.”

The allegations date back several months with Summers and allegedly involve meetings at Rowan County hotel rooms. Sources say Privette allegedly paid Summers with checks on two occasions and then reported those checks as stolen. Sources also say authorities questioned the prostitute about the checks and that's when they got the information to make a prostitution case against Privette.

That family member said Summers helped police in their investigation of Privette.

“She felt by her help, cooperating with them, that she would not be implicated in this,” the family member said.

Summers’ family is worried about the pressure that all this attention is generating.

“My concern is that she might go out there and relapse because she is just now getting her life together,” the woman said. “That’s my concern; she just got a job.”

Summers has been arrested on drug charges before, but her family says she is now clean.

(WCNC's Glenn Counts and Tony Burbeck contributed to this report.)