NC Lawsuit Targets Ex-Senator’s Romance

Rubber stamp with red lawsuit imprint on white paper — Photo: Castleski / Shutterstock

A former U.S. senator admitted under oath to a monthslong affair with her married bodyguard, one his ex-wife says destroyed a 14-year marriage.

Story Snapshot

Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema admitted in court filings to a “romantic” relationship with her ex-bodyguard, Matthew Ammel.
Ammel’s ex-wife, Heather Ammel, sued Sinema in North Carolina under a rare law called “alienation of affection.”
Sinema said the relationship began in May 2024 and included visits to five states while Ammel was still married with three kids.
Sinema is fighting the lawsuit on jurisdiction grounds, not by denying the affair itself.

Sworn Admission Details a Secret Relationship

Kyrsten Sinema, who represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate until early 2025, admitted in a March 2026 court filing that she had a “romantic relationship” with Matthew Ammel, a member of her security detail. Carolina Journal reported she acknowledged starting that relationship in May 2024, about five months before Ammel separated from his wife.

Court-record reporting says Sinema testified the two were first intimate over Memorial Day weekend 2024 at an Airbnb in Napa, California. She said the relationship continued in New York City, Washington, D.C., Aspen, Colorado, and Phoenix, Arizona. Sinema also said she knew Ammel was married with three children the entire time.

Text messages cited in the filings reportedly show Sinema writing “I missed you” and referencing “putting my hand on your heart.” Heather Ammel says she found those messages and blames both her ex-husband and Sinema for ending her marriage.

A Lawsuit Built on an Old North Carolina Law

Heather Ammel filed suit in Moore County Superior Court in September 2025, using North Carolina’s “alienation of affection” law. The complaint claims Sinema “willfully and intentionally” set out to win Ammel’s affection away from his wife. Reporting describes gifts and shared moments, including a massage device, champagne backstage at a concert, and a Taylor Swift concert outing.

North Carolina is one of only a handful of states that still lets spouses sue a third party this way. Courts there require proof of three things: a real marriage, a loss of love in that marriage, and wrongful acts by the outside person that caused the loss. The law dates back generations but never disappeared from North Carolina’s books.

Separate reporting found Sinema’s former campaign committee paid Ammel close to $9,000 in October, adding another layer to public interest in the relationship’s timeline and the money connected to it.

Jurisdiction Fight Could Decide the Case’s Future

Sinema has not denied the relationship happened. Instead, her legal team argues the case does not belong in North Carolina courts because the alleged encounters took place in California, New York, the nation’s capital, Colorado, and Arizona. The case was moved to federal court, and Sinema has asked a judge to dismiss it entirely on those jurisdictional grounds.

Court filings show Ammel’s lawyers pushed back, arguing Ammel himself lived in Moore County and that his marriage broke down there, giving North Carolina courts a real connection to the case. Until a judge rules on jurisdiction, deeper discovery into the affair’s full timeline and impact on the marriage may stay limited.

FORMER U.S. SENATOR ADMITS AFFAIR WITH MARRIED BODYGUARD

Former U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema acknowledged in sworn testimony that she had a s**ual relationship with her then-married bodyguard while serving as Arizona senator, according to federal court filings.

Sinema testified in… pic.twitter.com/LQHJfMcQee

— Daily Tribune (@tribunephl) August 16, 2026

Whatever the outcome, the case has already put a former senator’s private conduct on public display through sworn testimony most officials never face. For voters on both the left and right who already distrust powerful people avoiding accountability, a former lawmaker admitting to an affair with a married employee, then fighting the lawsuit mostly on legal technicalities rather than the facts, feeds a familiar frustration: rules and consequences too often depend on who you are, not what you did.