Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema testified under oath about her sexual relationship with her married bodyguard, and the text messages his wife sent after catching them are now part of the public record.
Sinema, 50, took the stand Wednesday in a Winston-Salem, North Carolina, federal courtroom and confirmed what court filings had already laid bare: she carried on a months-long affair with Matthew Ammel, a married father of two and Afghanistan War veteran who served as her personal security detail, while she was still a sitting U.S. senator. The hearing, before U.S. District Judge David A. Bragdon, a Trump appointee, centered on Sinema's motion to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction and a separate motion to compel further testimony from Matthew Ammel.
Heather Ammel, Matthew's ex-wife and the mother of three, filed the civil suit under North Carolina's "alienation of affection" law, a statute that allows a spouse to sue a third party for interfering in a marriage. She is seeking more than $75,000 in damages, AP News reported, alleging Sinema pursued the relationship despite knowing Ammel was married. The couple had been together for 14 years before the marriage fell apart.
A July 31 deposition, made public last weekend, contained Sinema's own account of how the relationship turned physical. She admitted she and Matthew Ammel slept together multiple times between May and October 2024, at locations stretching from coast to coast, an Airbnb in Napa, California; a New York City trip during CNN anchor Jessica Dean's wedding; Sinema's apartment in Washington, D.C.; a fundraising trip to Colorado; and Sinema's Phoenix home.
Breitbart published one of the most direct passages from Sinema's sworn testimony:
"We were staying at an Airbnb in Napa, California. We were outside. Matt kissed me. We went inside and had sex."
When her own attorney, Steven Epstein, asked her about the tone of her conversations with Ammel, Sinema offered a brief denial.
"I'm not like that."
She also told the court that when the opportunity arose, she did not hesitate. "When the opportunity presented itself, and when Mr. Ammel approached me, we had sex," she said. Sinema acknowledged she knew Ammel was married with children throughout every encounter, Fox News reported.
The affair did not unfold entirely in person. Court exhibits included Signal messages Sinema sent to Matthew Ammel, messages she set to auto-delete after eight hours. On October 3, 2024, the night after an alleged tryst in Arizona, Sinema sent three such messages, including one that read: "I'll see you soon."
That message never reached Matthew alone. Heather Ammel, apparently using her husband's phone, fired back: "Are you having an affair with my husband?" She followed up: "You took a married man away from his family."
When Heather Ammel's attorneys pressed Sinema on whether the auto-delete feature was meant to conceal the affair, Sinema denied it. "Absolutely not," she said. She also denied that a photo she had sent Ammel, showing herself wrapped in a towel with cupping marks on her back, was an attempt to appeal to him before they became sexually involved. "Cupping bruises are very unattractive, so, no," Sinema told the court.
Political scandals involving personal misconduct are hardly new on either side of the aisle. A California Republican leader was ousted earlier this year amid affair allegations, and Democrats have faced their own string of embarrassments.
The court record paints a picture of a marriage that disintegrated in stages. Heather Ammel testified she first confronted her husband about his relationship with Sinema in October 2023, after Matthew expressed discomfort with questions the senator had asked him on a fundraising trip. In an attempt to set boundaries, Heather accompanied the pair to a U2 concert at The Sphere in Las Vegas in late 2023.
It did not work. By February 2024, the couple nearly came to blows after a comedy show in Raleigh, North Carolina. Heather admitted she threw a phone at her husband during the altercation.
Then came June 24, 2024. Matthew Ammel texted his wife a screenshot of Sinema's Signal messages, the intimate notes the senator had been sending him. Heather's response, entered into evidence, was a long, anguished plea:
"She's insidious. Yes, she might care about you and want to help you, but it's to her own gain. This is a woman who is willing to break up a family... She's a home wrecker. She knows you're vulnerable and has taken advantage of that... She has you in her web now."
Heather warned her husband directly about the consequences: "I'm telling you if our marriage ends, and you continue this emotional affair (if not physical at this point) the girls will never forgive you... Please do not throw away our family that I love SO much for someone as selfish as she is."
The plea went unanswered in the way she hoped. The day before, in the early hours of June 23, Matthew had texted Heather: "I hate you. I don't want to be married to you anymore." He followed that with: "You punched me in the head 3 times. I hate you."
The couple separated in November 2024. Their divorce was finalized in March. Heather Ammel testified about feeling powerless against a former United States senator with resources and influence she could not match.
"It's me against a United States senator who has power and money."
Sinema's attorney, Steven Epstein, argued the case should be thrown out because Sinema's contact with Ammel inside North Carolina amounted to just one message, the October 3, 2024, text that Heather intercepted. Epstein contended that eight other Signal messages contained no romantic subtext, and seven of those were sent before the sexual relationship began. The Washington Examiner reported that Sinema's legal team framed the jurisdictional argument around the idea that her conduct "does not connect her to North Carolina in a meaningful way."
Sinema also conceded a factual error in her own deposition. She had previously stated the October 3 message was sent around October 16, a mistake she corrected on the stand Wednesday.
Judge Bragdon did not rule on the motion to dismiss. He said he would issue a written opinion later. He did, however, allow Heather Ammel's attorneys, Thomas Van Camp and Mary Catherine Coltrane, to take an additional deposition of Matthew Ammel, limited to questions about whether he had reviewed documents before an earlier interview.
Democrats have faced growing scrutiny over personal conduct scandals in recent years. The fallout from Gov. Gavin Newsom's affair drew national attention when the other woman went public, and progressive leaders who built careers on accountability have sometimes gone quiet when the misconduct hits close to home.
Matthew Ammel's background adds a layer the jurisdictional arguments do not capture. He is an Afghanistan War veteran and former special forces soldier who struggled with depression, traumatic brain injury, and PTSD. Heather Ammel herself acknowledged that Sinema had helped her husband through a dark period. "Ms. Sinema had gotten Matt out of a deep, dark hole of depression," she testified.
But Heather also testified she believed Sinema had been "grooming" her husband, a characterization Sinema's legal team has not addressed directly in the public record. Just The News noted the case has drawn attention as part of a broader pattern of Democratic lawmakers caught in extramarital scandals. Sinema left the Senate in 2025 after a single term, having switched her party affiliation to independent before declining to seek re-election.
Heather Ammel also alleged Sinema got Matthew "hooked on" psychedelics, a claim that has not been addressed in testimony or documents made public so far.
Both women left Wednesday's hearing without answering questions. The judge's written ruling on jurisdiction will determine whether the case proceeds, or whether Sinema escapes accountability by arguing the affair simply happened in the wrong state.
Democratic leaders who championed accountability for personal misconduct have been notably selective about which scandals deserve their outrage. A military wife and mother says a sitting senator pursued her vulnerable husband and wrecked her family. The least the courts can do is hear her case.
