Former Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema has acknowledged an affair with her former bodyguard in a North Carolina court filing that seeks dismissal of an “alienation of affection” lawsuit brought by his estranged wife. The admission, laid out in a sworn declaration and motion to dismiss, centers on where the communications and interactions took place and raises jurisdictional questions as the legal fight moves forward.
Sinema, who represented Arizona in the U.S. Senate from 2019 to 2025, admitted the relationship with Matthew Ammel in a court filing aimed at knocking out the claim. That motion doesn’t shy away from the basic facts of the relationship, but it does press a legal defense focused on geography and authority.
The complaint accuses Sinema of “intentional and malicious interference” in Ammel’s marriage and seeks $25,000 in damages for what the filing calls allegedly “willful and wanton” conduct. Those are serious claims, and the plaintiff will have to clear some tough legal hurdles to prevail. For many Republicans and voters who value personal responsibility, the mix of public office and private conduct raises straightforward questions about judgment and consequences.
KYRSTEN SINEMA RIPS SENATE DEMOCRATS FOR APPARENT FLIP-FLOP ON FILIBUSTER NOW THAT THEY NEED IT
The filings make clear they do not contest the description of the affair as both “romantic and intimate,” but they argue the case should be dismissed because the communications at issue occurred “exclusively outside” North Carolina. That jurisdictional angle is central to the defense and it shifts the fight from personal facts to procedural law. If the court accepts that argument, the merits of the allegation may never be tested there.
According to the filings, the relationship began in May 2024 in Sonoma, California, and extended into months of calls, emails, and Signal messages alongside meetings in multiple U.S. cities. The papers sketch a long-distance pattern that opponents will say undercuts any claim that the defendant purposefully targeted a North Carolina marriage. Still, the emotional fallout for the family involved is very real regardless of the legal venue.
KYRSTEN SINEMA’S SWITCH TO INDEPENDENT DESCRIBED AS ‘GUT PUNCH’ TO DEMOCRATS: ‘NO WIGGLE ROOM’
One exchange highlighted in the filing included this line from Sinema: “I keep waking up during my sleep and reaching over for your arms to hold me,” which the declaration says was sent from Scottsdale in June 2024 and received while Ammel was in Kansas. That message is offered as direct evidence of the intimate tone of the relationship. In a public career, private messages like that have political and reputational consequences.
The court filing also recounts an episode where Ammel’s estranged wife apparently intervened and messaged Sinema directly, asking: “Are you having an affair with my husband? You took a married man away from his family.” That exchange is invoked by the plaintiff as proof of harm and intrusion. The emotional content of such messages is hard to ignore when courts weigh claims about a marriage’s breakdown.
Only a handful of states still allow “alienation of affection” claims, and North Carolina is one of them, which explains why this suit landed there. Plaintiffs in these cases face a three-part burden: First, they must show the marriage featured real affection before any third-party involvement; second, they must prove that love and affection was destroyed or significantly diminished; and finally, they must show the defendant directly “caused the destruction of that marital love and affection.” Those standards are strict, and proving causation is often the biggest obstacle.
The motion to dismiss frames the dispute as primarily about law and venue rather than contesting that the relationship occurred, asking the court to end the case on procedural grounds. That approach will force the judge to decide whether North Carolina law can reach conduct that the defense says happened elsewhere. As the legal papers move through the system, media outlets have sought comment and the public watches how accountability and process play out in parallel.
