Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema admitted under oath to a months-long sexual relationship with her then-married security guard, and his ex-wife is now suing her for wrecking a 14-year marriage.
Sinema, the Arizona Democrat turned independent who left office at the beginning of last year, sat for a deposition on July 31 at a law office in Raleigh, North Carolina, and described in explicit detail six sexual encounters with Matthew Ammel spanning from Memorial Day 2024 through October 2024. Ammel was a member of her security detail. He was married with three children. Fox News Digital first reported on the deposition testimony and the court filings that underpin the case.
Ammel's ex-wife, Heather Ammel, filed suit against Sinema under North Carolina's alienation-of-affection law, one of the few state statutes that allows a spouse to sue a third party for destroying a marriage. The lawsuit seeks at least $75,000 in damages. An evidentiary hearing is scheduled for August 19.
Sinema told the lawyer deposing her that the first sexual encounter happened around Memorial Day 2024 at an Airbnb in Napa, California. She was staying there with friends Penny and Grant Croissant and another member of her security detail. Ammel was also present.
Her account was blunt:
"We were staying at an Airbnb in Napa, California. We were outside. Matt kissed me. We went inside and had sex."
From there, the relationship continued across the country. In June 2024, Sinema testified, she and Ammel were "intimate" in her hotel room in New York City during a trip for CNN anchor Jessica Dean's wedding. In mid-July, they had sex at Sinema's Washington, D.C., apartment after she took a red-eye flight from the West Coast. In mid-August, another encounter took place in Aspen, Colorado, during what Sinema described as a "fundraising trip." And in October 2024, they had sex at Sinema's house in Phoenix.
A sixth encounter, in late September 2024 in Washington, Sinema said she could not recall. But Matthew Ammel confirmed it in his own deposition.
Sinema acknowledged throughout her testimony that she knew Ammel was married and had three children during every one of these encounters. She was a sitting United States senator at the time.
Court filings also put into the record text messages Sinema sent to Matthew Ammel. One read: "Putting my hand on your heart. I'll see you soon. I miss you." When a lawyer asked Sinema whether she understood that "a wife reading this might get concerned about who is sending her husband that kind of message," Sinema answered: "Yes."
Heather Ammel read aloud another message during her own deposition, one she had found on her husband's phone from Sinema:
"I hope your day was okay. Thinking of you. I am with you. I keep waking up during my sleep and reaching over for your arms to hold me."
Political sex scandals are nothing new in Washington. Gavin Newsom's 2005 affair with a city hall aide resurfaced years later and followed him through his political career. But the Sinema case stands apart because of the power dynamic: she was the principal, and Ammel was part of the team paid to protect her.
When asked about a photograph of herself in a towel showing cupping marks, apparently entered into the record by Heather Ammel's legal team, Sinema deflected. "I'm an endurance athlete," she said. "So a photograph of me with cupping marks is about sports."
Heather Ammel's lawsuit paints a grim picture of what happened to her family. She and Matthew Ammel had been married for 14 years. AP News reported that the lawsuit described the Ammels as having "a good and loving marriage" with "genuine love and affection" before Sinema allegedly interfered.
Heather Ammel recalled discovering the affair when her husband came home "severely intoxicated" while they were staying at her parents' house. By June 2024, she had already confronted the situation. In a text message to her husband that month, she described Sinema as "insidious" and "a woman who is willing to break up a family."
Yet Heather Ammel also placed blame on her husband. In her deposition, she described Matthew Ammel as an "established liar and manipulator" and said she believed he was "actively manipulating" both her and Sinema. The couple separated on November 1, 2024. Their divorce was finalized in March 2026.
The lawsuit was originally filed quietly in a North Carolina state court. The Washington Examiner reported that Sinema's legal team moved the case to federal court, citing her former congressional status. Sinema then sought dismissal on two grounds: that her relationship with Matthew Ammel occurred entirely outside North Carolina, and that the federal court lacked personal jurisdiction over her.
Her attorney, Steven Epstein, argued in the motion that "because Defendant's conduct related to her romantic relationship with Mr. Ammel does not connect her to North Carolina in a meaningful way, jurisdiction over her in this action does not comport with due process."
Court filings obtained by multiple outlets paint an even broader picture of the relationship. The New York Post reported that the lawsuit alleged Sinema suggested Matthew Ammel try MDMA, known as the "love drug", and paid for psychedelic treatments, bought him gifts, and invited him to a wedding and a Taylor Swift concert. The lawsuit also alleged that Sinema's former head of security resigned over concerns that the ex-senator was "having sexual relationships with other security members."
Those allegations come from the lawsuit filing itself and have not been confirmed through deposition testimony in the material available. But they add context to the scope of the relationship Heather Ammel is describing, one that went well beyond a single lapse in judgment.
The scandal follows a familiar pattern for political figures on the left. The Platner scandal dragged Democrats down with voters by a two-to-one margin in polling, and party leaders have repeatedly struggled with how to handle misconduct in their own ranks.
Sinema, who began her career as a Democrat before rebranding as an independent, left the Senate without seeking re-election. She is unmarried. Matthew Ammel, according to the lawsuit, was not just her bodyguard, Just The News reported that Sinema gave him an additional role as a national security fellow in her Senate office while he continued working on her security detail.
That dual role raises its own questions about the use of taxpayer-funded Senate positions. A senator who employs a man as both her bodyguard and a policy fellow, and then sleeps with him repeatedly while he is married, has created exactly the kind of power imbalance that Washington claims to take seriously, when it is politically convenient.
Sinema's legal strategy is straightforward: she wants out on jurisdictional grounds before the case ever reaches a jury. If the federal court agrees that none of the relevant conduct occurred in North Carolina, the lawsuit could be dismissed regardless of its merits.
Heather Ammel, on the other hand, filed in North Carolina precisely because it is one of the handful of states that still allows alienation-of-affection claims, a legal tool that lets a wronged spouse hold a third party accountable for deliberately interfering in a marriage. The evidentiary hearing on August 19 will likely determine whether the case moves forward or dies on procedural grounds.
Sex scandals have a way of following politicians regardless of party. Ken Paxton recently dodged infidelity questions at a town hall as personal scandals shadowed his Senate bid. But the Sinema case is distinct in its sheer volume of sworn testimony. She did not deny the affair. She described it, encounter by encounter, under oath.
The deposition transcript, the text messages, and the timeline all tell the same story: a sitting U.S. senator carried on a sexual relationship with a married man on her payroll, across five states, over the course of five months. She knew he had a wife and three children. She kept going.
Accountability is supposed to mean something. For the people who lived with the consequences of Sinema's choices, a wife, three kids, a 14-year marriage, it had better.