Former U.S. senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona acknowledged having an affair with a member of her Senate security detail while in office but argued in a legal filing that a lawsuit filed by the bodyguard’s former wife should be dismissed.
In court documents filed Thursday, Sinema acknowledged that her relationship with Matthew Ammel “became romantic and intimate” in May 2024.
“While Mr. Ammel was on a security detail for me [in] Sonoma, CA, we were physically intimate for the first time,” Sinema wrote, adding they were “physically intimate” again on five other occasions in various cities until early October of that year.
The filing, first reported by TMZ, is part of a motion to dismiss an “alienation of affection” lawsuit against Sinema from Ammel’s ex-wife, Heather Ammel, who alleges Sinema broke up her marriage by “willfully and intentionally” seducing her husband despite knowing he was married with three children.
Heather Ammel is seeking more than $75,000 in damages from Sinema for “severe emotional pain,” among other things.
Sinema’s filing contends the lawsuit should be dismissed because her relationship with Matthew Ammel “occurred exclusively outside of North Carolina,” where the Ammels lived and the suit was filed.
A lawyer for Sinema, a Democrat turned independent, did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.
A declaration filed in the case by Matthew Ammel does not address allegations of an affair. It says his relationship with his wife ended in October 2024. Matthew Ammel could not be reached for comment Friday.
The House passed a resolution in 2018 that banned members of Congress from having sexual relationships with their employees or with employees of any committee on which a lawmaker serves.
However, the Senate did not pass that resolution, and senators are not subject to those same restrictions. Matthew Ammel’s filing says he became a Senate employee in June 2024. He also appears to have been paid, at least in part, from Sinema’s campaign account from mid-2024 to late 2025.
Heather Ammel’s lawsuit claims that Sinema began romantically pursuing Matthew Ammel after he began working for her in April 2022 as a bodyguard during her time in the Senate.
The two traded other texts that “exceeded the bounds of a normal working relationship,” according to the lawsuit: Sinema allegedly offered to help Ammel — an Army veteran who had post-traumatic stress disorder — with his mental health challenges, and once suggested he bring MDMA drugs on a work trip so that she could “guide him through a psychedelic experience.”
In her Thursday filing, Sinema said she had “no recollection” of several of the messages mentioned in the lawsuit, including the one in which she supposedly suggested he bring drugs on a work trip.
Heather Ammel claims that, in 2024, she discovered more inappropriate messages between her then-husband and Sinema and confronted him. At this point, Sinema had offered Matthew Ammel a salaried position as a defense and national security fellow on her Senate staff.
According to the complaint, Matthew Ammel “struggled to admit to [his wife] he was having an affair” but was vocal about divorcing her. The two separated in November 2024, about five months after the relationship between Sinema and Matthew Ammel became intimate, the lawsuit says.
Sinema, 49, was elected to the Senate in 2018 as a Democrat but clashed frequently with her party and became an independent in 2022. She served one term in office. While in office, Sinema faced questions over reportedly asking her staff to run personal errands, which would have violated Senate ethics rules.
Sinema now works for the Washington-based lobbying firm Hogan Lovells, where she has lobbied for data centers and for the psychoactive drug ibogaine to treat traumatic brain injury. She has cited Ammel as someone the drug had changed.
Aaron Schaffer contributed to this report.
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