Former United States Senator Kyrsten Sinema has publicly acknowledged in sworn court documents that she had a romantic and physical relationship with a married member of her Senate security detail, while simultaneously arguing that a lawsuit brought against her under a rare North Carolina law should be thrown out because the affair never took place within the state’s borders.
Sinema, who represented Arizona in the Senate from 2019 to 2025, acknowledged the relationship with Matthew Ammel in a motion to dismiss an alienation of affection lawsuit filed by his ex-wife, Heather Ammel, who contends Sinema’s conduct destroyed a good and loving marriage in which genuine love and affection existed before the former senator’s interference.
In a signed declaration attached to the court filing, Sinema confirmed that she and Ammel became romantic and intimate in late May 2024, with their first physical encounter taking place on May 27 in Sonoma, California. She further acknowledged physical intimacy in New York City, Washington, Colorado, Arizona and Washington in the months that followed.
A Rare Legal Weapon
The case turns on an unusual legal instrument. North Carolina is one of only a handful of states that still recognises alienation of affection lawsuits, which allow a wronged spouse to seek financial damages from a third party who is found to have deliberately interfered with or destroyed the marriage. The law requires the plaintiff to prove that genuine affection existed in the marriage before the third party’s involvement, that the affection was subsequently lost, and that the defendant’s conduct was the direct cause of that loss.
Heather Ammel of Raeford, Moore County, filed the lawsuit in September 2025, seeking compensatory damages of at least $25,000 as well as additional punitive damages for what she describes as wilful and wanton conduct. The case was moved from state court to the US District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina in January 2026.
The Jurisdiction Fight
Sinema’s legal strategy rests entirely on geography. Her motion argues the relationship occurred exclusively outside North Carolina’s borders, and that Ammel was not physically in the state when Sinema directed communications to him that formed the basis of the complaint.
Heather Ammel disputes that, grounding her assertion of jurisdiction on romantic telephone calls and electronic messages she alleges Sinema initiated with Matthew Ammel while he was physically in North Carolina. Sinema’s lawyers contend that even the single confirmed message sent while Ammel was in the state was transmitted after the marriage had already effectively ended and therefore could not have contributed to the breakdown of affection.
Ammel was initially hired and paid from Sinema’s campaign account, but by the summer of 2024, while she was still in office, he had been moved to her official Senate staff payroll. The couple separated in November 2024, approximately five months after the affair began.
Sinema left the Senate at the end of her single term in early 2025 without seeking reelection, having previously departed the Democratic Party to sit as an independent. She now works as a lobbyist at the Washington firm Hogan Lovells. A federal judge must now rule on whether the case proceeds to trial.
