Lawsuit Accuses Former U.S. Senator of Stealing North Carolina Woman’s Husband

A new lawsuit filed in a federal court in North Carolina accuses Kyrsten Sinema, the former U.S. senator from Arizona, of pursuing a romantic relationship with a member of her security team, leading him to dissolve his marriage. 

Among other things, the lawsuit claims Sinema wooed Moore County resident Matthew Ammel by purchasing him a Theragun personal massager, drinking Dom Perignon with him in Cindy McCain’s suite at a U2 concert, suggesting he score MDMA so she could “guide him through a psychedelic experience,” and taking him to a Taylor Swift concert. 

The complaint was originally filed in Moore County Superior Court in September but went unreported until this week, when it was moved to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina because Sinema lives in Arizona. 

The plaintiff, Heather Ammel, is seeking damages from Sinema for alienation of affection. Under this controversial North Carolina law, a person can be held financially liable for “wrongful and malicious conduct”—i.e., initiating an affair—that disrupts a marriage. While alienation of affection laws were once common throughout the United States, only five other states still have them on the books. 

Sinema, her attorney, and attorneys for Heather Ammel and Matthew Ammel did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment. Matthew Ammel filed for divorce last week, Moore County court records show.

According to Heather Ammel’s complaint, her husband is an Army veteran who suffered from post-traumatic stress after deployments to the Middle East. They married in 2010, and she was a stay-at-home mom. In 2022, he got a job as part of Sinema’s security detail. 

A year later, the head of that detail quit, warning Matthew Ammel on her way out that “she had concerns [Sinema] was having sexual relations with other security members,” the complaint alleges. 

One of the Senate’s few openly LGBTQ members—Sinema is bisexual—she embraced an eccentric reputation, once wearing a purple wig on the Senate floor. However, while Sinema was narrowly elected in 2018 as a Democrat and was thought to be progressive—having been a former member of the Green Party—she soon became a thorn in the side of Senate Democrats, backing Republicans’ ability to filibuster voting rights legislation and other key priorities. 

After the 2022 midterms, Sinema left the Democratic Party and became an independent. Sinema did not seek reelection in 2024.

Matthew Ammel began accompanying Sinema on work trips in 2023, according to the complaint. They went to Napa Valley, then to a U2 concert at The Sphere in Las Vegas. They began chatting frequently on the encrypted messaging app Signal. Sinema sent him pictures of herself wrapped in a towel, the lawsuit says. The senator volunteered to help him work through his mental health issues and suggested he pick up MDMA to aid in a “psychedelic experience.” (The lawsuit does not specify whether he did so.) 

According to the lawsuit, Sinema messaged Matthew Ammel during the 2024 State of the Union address, which she said she wasn’t attending because “she didn’t need to listen to some old man, President Biden, talk about legislation that she wrote.” When Matthew Ammel, who was attending a baseball game in Pittsburgh, messaged Sinema that he was going to start a “fuck the troops” chant, Sinema responded that she would “fuck the hot ones.” 

In May 2024, according to the complaint, Sinema paid for Matthew Ammel to receive “psychedelic treatment” in Nashville. She also bought him the Theragun and asked him to bring it to her apartment so she could “work on his back,” the lawsuit says. 

A month later, he became part of Sinema’s Senate staff as a national security aide. Around this time, the lawsuit says, he stopped wearing his wedding ring. 

That October, the lawsuit says Matthew Ammel attended Swift’s concert with Sinema in Miami; he had previously arranged for his wife and their three children to attend. (The lawsuit does not say whether all of them sat together.) 

After returning from a trip to Saudi Arabia with Sinema in November 2024, Matthew Ammel separated from his wife, the complaint says. Over the last 14 months, the couple has engaged in a heated legal dispute over assets and custody of their children. In Moore County court filings, each has called the other an unfit parent who is prone to angry outbursts. 

Heather Ammel’s complaint includes numerous examples of suggestive messages between her husband and Sinema. But it does not explicitly say that he confessed to infidelity, only that he “struggled to admit” to an affair in the months before the separation. 

To win, Heather Ammel doesn’t necessarily have to prove that an affair took place, but rather that Sinema intentionally destroyed or diminished the Ammels’ relationship. 

Sinema became a lobbyist after she left the Senate. According to the complaint, Sinema is still in a relationship with Matthew Ammel and frequently travels to North Carolina to visit him.