Federal court filings show former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema testified under oath that she had sex multiple times with her then-married security guard, and now his ex-wife is suing her for wrecking a 14-year marriage.

Sinema sat for a deposition on July 31 at a law office in Raleigh, North Carolina, and described in detail a string of sexual encounters with Matthew Ammel that stretched from Memorial Day 2024 through October 2024. Ammel was her security guard. He was married. He had three children. Sinema acknowledged she knew all of that.

Heather Ammel, Matthew Ammel's ex-wife, filed the lawsuit in North Carolina under the state's alienation-of-affection law, a statute that lets a jilted spouse sue a third party for destroying a marriage. North Carolina is one of only a handful of states that still allows such claims. The suit alleges Sinema knowingly pursued Ammel and broke apart a marriage that, as AP News reported, the complaint described as having "genuine love and affection."

Sinema's legal team moved the case from state court to federal court and sought dismissal, arguing the relationship occurred entirely outside North Carolina and that the federal court lacked personal jurisdiction over her. That motion has not been resolved. An evidentiary hearing is scheduled for August 19.

Sinema described the affair city by city, from Napa to Phoenix

The deposition testimony, first reported by Fox News Digital, lays out at least six sexual encounters across five states over roughly five months, all while Sinema was a sitting U.S. senator and Ammel was still married.

The first encounter happened around Memorial Day 2024 at an Airbnb in Napa, California. Sinema was staying there with friends Penny and Grant Croissant, along with Ammel. In her deposition, Sinema described it plainly:

"We were staying at an Airbnb in Napa, California. We were outside. Matt kissed me. We went inside and had sex."

In June 2024, Sinema testified, the two had sex again at a hotel in New York City. The occasion was a wedding for CNN anchor Jessica Dean. By that same month, Heather Ammel had already grown suspicious. She texted her husband describing Sinema as "insidious" and "a woman who is willing to break up a family."

The encounters continued. Sinema described a third in mid-July 2024 at her Washington, D.C., apartment after she took a red-eye flight from the West Coast. A fourth came in mid-August 2024 in Aspen, Colorado, during what Sinema called a "fundraising trip." A fifth encounter in late September 2024, also in Washington, was confirmed by Matthew Ammel in his own deposition, though Sinema testified she could not recall it.

The last described encounter took place in October 2024 at Sinema's house in Phoenix. The Ammels separated on November 1, 2024. Their divorce was finalized in March 2026.

Text messages showed a relationship well beyond professional

Court filings included text messages Sinema sent to Ammel that went far beyond anything a senator would send a member of her security detail. One read: "Putting my hand on your heart. I'll see you soon. I miss you."

When a lawyer asked Sinema during the deposition whether a wife reading that message might be concerned, Sinema answered with a single word: "Yes."

Another message, which Heather Ammel read aloud during her own deposition and which appeared in a screenshot in court filings, was more explicit about the depth of the attachment:

"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."

Sinema, a Democrat turned independent who left office at the beginning of 2025, was unmarried during the period in question. Ammel was not. That gap is the entire basis for Heather Ammel's legal claim. Sexual misconduct allegations involving political figures are hardly new, but few have produced this level of sworn, on-the-record detail from the accused party herself.

Lawsuit alleges Sinema pursued Ammel despite knowing he was married

Heather Ammel's complaint does not merely allege an affair. It alleges a deliberate campaign. The Washington Examiner reported that Sinema admitted to the sexual relationship in a signed March 7 declaration, acknowledging it became "romantic and intimate" at the end of May 2024.

The lawsuit's language is pointed. It alleges Sinema "willfully and intentionally" set out to "seduce, entice, and alienate the affections" of Matthew Ammel beginning in or before 2023, well before the first sexual encounter Sinema described in her deposition. Just The News reported that the complaint also alleges Sinema and Ammel exchanged "romantic and lascivious" messages via the encrypted Signal messaging app, which Heather Ammel discovered in 2024.

Beyond the affair itself, the lawsuit paints a picture of entanglement between Sinema's personal and professional worlds. Sinema allegedly gave Ammel a job as a national security fellow in her Senate office while he continued working as her bodyguard. She allegedly bought him gifts and paid for psychedelic treatments, including MDMA.

Separately, the New York Post reported that Sinema's former head of security resigned due to concerns she was "having sexual relationships with other security members." The lawsuit seeks more than $25,000 in damages.

Heather Ammel's own deposition testimony was not entirely sympathetic toward her ex-husband. She called Matthew Ammel an "established liar and manipulator" and said she believed he was "actively manipulating" both her and Sinema. But her legal claim targets Sinema, not him.

Sinema's defense rests on geography, not denial

Sinema has not denied the affair. Her legal strategy instead attacks jurisdiction. Her attorney, Steven Epstein, argued in filings that no jury would believe Sinema's one message to Ammel while he was in North Carolina "had any bearing on the destruction of marital love and affection." The argument is straightforward: everything that mattered happened in California, New York, Colorado, Arizona, and Washington, D.C., not North Carolina.

Epstein wrote that "Defendant's conduct related to her romantic relationship with Mr. Ammel does not connect her to North Carolina in a meaningful way" and that "jurisdiction over her in this action does not comport with due process." Whether a federal judge agrees will likely be tested at the August 19 evidentiary hearing.

One detail from the deposition stood out for its awkwardness. When lawyers presented a photograph of Sinema showing cupping marks, a detail that might suggest physical intimacy, she deflected. "I'm an endurance athlete," she said. "So a photograph of me with cupping marks is about sports."

The line may or may not persuade a judge. It certainly captures the tone of a defense built on technicalities rather than substance. Sinema is not contesting what she did. She is contesting where she did it and whether that gives North Carolina courts the right to hold her accountable. The gap between a politician's public posture and private conduct is a familiar story in Washington, but rarely does it arrive in this much sworn detail.

A sitting senator, a married subordinate, and no one to answer to

The timeline matters beyond the legal question. Every encounter Sinema described took place while she held a seat in the United States Senate. Ammel was not a casual acquaintance. He was her security guard, someone who worked for her, traveled with her, and was in a position of professional dependence. The power imbalance is difficult to wave away, regardless of how any court rules on North Carolina's jurisdiction.

Congress has spent years wrestling with questions about how lawmakers police their own conduct, from stock trading to workplace behavior. Sinema's case does not involve a criminal charge, and alienation-of-affection lawsuits are a civil matter rooted in an old legal tradition that most states have abandoned. But the facts she admitted under oath, a months-long sexual relationship with a married man on her payroll, carried on across the country while she represented Arizona, speak for themselves.

Heather Ammel's lawsuit alleges that as "a direct and proximate result" of Sinema's "intentional and unlawful actions," the love and affection in the Ammels' marriage "was alienated and destroyed." Whether that claim survives the jurisdictional fight is an open question. The underlying conduct is not.

Political scandals come and go. Senate races generate their share of controversy, and voters have short memories. But Sinema's deposition is not a rumor or an allegation from an anonymous source. It is her own testimony, under oath, describing what she did, where she did it, and with whom, while the people of Arizona were paying her to serve.

Accountability does not require a guilty verdict. Sometimes the sworn record is enough.