Kyrsten Sinema’s former bodyguard and lover is back in jail after prosecutors said he sought a rifle from military friends, broke release terms, and vowed to take the ex-senator down.
Matthew Ammel, 39, a former Green Beret who once ran security for the onetime Arizona senator, was arrested without incident in a Cheesecake Factory parking lot in Phoenix. Maricopa County prosecutors say he violated the terms of his September 17 release after a felony charge for trashing Sinema’s Cave Creek home.
Prosecutors alleged he asked a mutual acquaintance to contact Sinema on his behalf, reached out to military friends about building him a rifle, bought tactical gear, discussed funeral arrangements, and threatened to kill a judge and law enforcement. Deputy Attorney Bryn Barasha wrote that the state feared he would escalate retaliation if freed again.
The case ties a high-profile Washington affair to smashed art, a GPS-tracked gun-shop stop, a rejected court transport, and a trial date set years out. Sinema, 50, reported the contact approach to police on September 22 but has refused to help prosecutors, according to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.
On August 30, Ammel allegedly tore through Sinema’s roughly $2 million home in the Phoenix suburb of Cave Creek. Court records describe about $200,000 in damage.
He dumped 22 of her paintings into the pool, smashed expensive liquor bottles, and broke a mirror. He had threatened to throw a painting into the pool every 10 minutes until she posted a video on her X account. She refused.
Ammel later told the Arizona Republic he was angry at government, not at her personally in the way some accounts suggested.
“I was pissed at the system and I took it out on her art,” he said.
Charged with felony criminal damage, he was released September 17 under conditions that barred certain contact and weapons-related steps. A grand jury indicted him September 24 on a single felony count. Trial is set for February 11, 2027.
Less than a month after that release, police moved in again. A GPS tracker placed him at a north Phoenix gun shop, where he dropped off a large hunting knife to be engraved. Release terms barred him from having the knife. He told a judge the knife was a gift for his nephew’s Marine Corps boot camp graduation.
A North Carolina sheriff’s lieutenant had already warned detectives that Ammel was trying to get hold of a gun and tactical equipment. Arrest teams took him into custody at the restaurant parking lot without incident. On Wednesday a judge set bond at $25,000. That afternoon prosecutors demanded $100,000 cash-only.
"The state fears [Ammel] will escalate his retaliation if released,"
Barasha wrote in the filing.
Thursday he refused to be taken from jail to his arraignment. The judge moved the hearing to October 15 and ordered that he be produced by any means necessary, including force.
Ammel joined Sinema’s security detail in 2022. The affair began in 2024, during her single Senate term from 2019 to 2025. She has admitted the relationship. After leaving the Senate she joined the law firm Hogan Lovells as a senior adviser.
His ex-wife, Heather Ammel, is suing Sinema in North Carolina under the state’s “homewrecker” law, claiming Sinema ruined their 14-year marriage. Heather was seen leaving court in Winston-Salem on August 19, the same period Sinema appeared at a hearing there.
Ammel rejected the idea that Sinema preyed on him.
“Kyrsten didn't take advantage of me,” he said. “She was nice to me.”
He described accompanying her to elite events, an outing tied to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, a British American Tobacco board dinner, and CNN anchor Jessica Dean’s wedding, and said the access left him disgusted with how power works in Washington.
“Kyrsten was there rubbing elbows with Trump's personal lawyer and, like, it was legitimately the most insane thing I had ever seen,” he said.
“The American people have no idea how f***ed up our government is and, like, what our politicians spend their time doing.”
He also pointed to a seven-minute video from his 2007 Iraq deployment showing soldiers treating a bloodied man they had shot before loading him onto a helicopter. He said he wants to see his kids and his dog Scout and return to the Army.
“I had a dumb job, but I'm not dumb. Or crazy, I'm just sick of the system,” he said.
Separate reporting notes he was accused in 2025 of strangling health care workers while committed in North Carolina. The Step package does not resolve the status of that accusation.
What began as a domestic political scandal, security guard, married man, sitting senator, now sits in felony court with bond fights and force-authorized transport orders. Prosecutors are not treating the pool full of paintings as a closed chapter. They argue the same defendant who smashed art then tried to reopen contact through a third party, shopped for tactical capability, and talked about funerals and killing officials.
Sinema’s decision to report the September 22 approach, then decline further help to the county attorney’s office, leaves investigators working without their highest-profile witness. The public record still carries the GPS hit at the gun shop, the knife drop, the North Carolina warning, and the bond spike request from $25,000 to $100,000 cash-only.
Ammel met Sinema through Tulsi Gabbard, built a close working and personal orbit around her, and now faces years of court process over a single night at her home and the conduct that followed his first release. The judge’s order to bring him to the October 15 hearing by any means necessary signals how little patience remains for delays.
Voters hired Sinema to make law. They did not hire her detail to settle scores with art, knives, or military friends asked to build a rifle. When that line blurs, the only clean answer is handcuffs, a real bond, and a trial date that actually arrives.
