Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema admitted under oath to repeated sexual encounters with her married bodyguard in a deposition for a “homewrecker” lawsuit.
Sinema, 50, the Arizona independent and first openly bisexual person elected to Congress, gave the sworn testimony on July 31 in federal court, according to records from the case. She described multiple liaisons with Matthew Ammel, her then-bodyguard, that began around Memorial Day 2024 and continued across several states over the following months. Ammel, who had worked on Sinema’s security team since 2022, was married to Heather Ammel, a North Carolina mother of three, during the entire affair.
“We were staying at an Airbnb in Napa, California. We were outside. Matt kissed me. We went inside and had sex,” Sinema said in her deposition, marking the first time the two had been intimate. That encounter kicked off a months-long relationship that would later become the basis of a lawsuit exploiting North Carolina’s rare “homewrecker” statute, which allows spouses to sue their partner’s extramarital lover for damages.
The affair quickly escalated from the Napa Airbnb to other locations. Sinema testified that she and Ammel had sex again a few weeks later during CNN anchor Jessica Dean’s wedding in New York City, then repeatedly in Sinema’s Washington, D.C. Apartment. In August 2024, the two were intimate while Sinema traveled to Colorado on a fundraising trip, she stated. By October 2024, they had added her Phoenix home to their list of rendezvous spots.
Sinema, who is unmarried, acknowledged in her deposition that she became aware Ammel was married with three children as early as December 2023—months before their physical relationship began. She was less certain about a claimed September 2024 encounter that Matthew Ammel described in his own deposition, saying she could not clearly recall whether that meeting happened.
“I cared about Matt,” Sinema said in her sworn testimony. “Matt and several other of the members of the security team suffered from traumatic brain injury.”
Heather Ammel filed suit against Sinema last year under North Carolina’s alienation of affections law, one of only a handful of states still permitting such claims. She is seeking more than $75,000 in damages. Sinema attempted to have the case dismissed or moved by pushing it to federal court in January, arguing that the affair took place outside North Carolina and thus fell beyond the state law’s reach.
Heather Ammel’s allegations extend beyond the affair itself. She claims Sinema introduced her husband to psychedelic drugs, purportedly as a treatment for brain injuries and mental health conditions stemming from his multiple military deployments to the Middle East. The ex-wife also painted her former husband as a manipulator who deceived both women simultaneously.
During her deposition, Heather Ammel described discovering the affair when Matthew came home “severely intoxicated” and she accessed messages on his phone. One text from Sinema read: “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.”
Ammel also characterized her estranged husband as an “established liar and manipulator” who was “actively manipulating” both her and Sinema during the affair period.
In the viral moment that sparked national attention, the political scandal intersects with an archaic legal framework: North Carolina remains one of just six states allowing alienation of affections lawsuits, a tort dating to 18th-century English common law that treats a third party’s interference in marriage as a property crime against the wronged spouse. The Ammels’ 14-year marriage collapsed in November 2024, with their divorce finalized this March. Sinema’s Senate term ended in January 2025 when she chose not to seek reelection, leaving Washington after a single six-year term marked by her high-profile departure from the Democratic Party to become an independent.
An evidentiary hearing in the federal case is scheduled for Aug. 19.