Former U.S. senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona has been sued by the ex-wife of a former member of her Senate security detail, who alleges that Sinema had an affair with her husband and knowingly helped break up their marriage, according to a lawsuit filed late last year in state court. Heather Ammel claims Sinema “willfully and intentionally” seduced her then-husband, Matthew Ammel, despite knowing he was married with three children, and is seeking more than $75,000 in damages for “severe emotional pain,” among other claims, while Sinema has requested that the case be moved to federal court and her representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuit alleges that Sinema, who was elected as a Democrat in 2018 before becoming an independent in 2022, began romantically pursuing Ammel after he started working as her bodyguard in April 2022, accusing her of sending “romantic and lascivious” messages on the encrypted app Signal, including a photo of herself wrapped in a towel and discussions of “missionary-style sex.” According to the complaint, the two exchanged messages that “exceeded the bounds of a normal working relationship,” with Sinema allegedly offering to help Ammel, an Army veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, with his mental health and at one point suggesting he bring MDMA on a work trip so she could “guide him through a psychedelic experience.”
The lawsuit further claims that Ammel accompanied Sinema on multiple work trips, including to Napa Valley, Las Vegas, and a March 2024 music festival in Arizona where Sinema was allegedly “handsy,” followed by a trip to San Francisco where the two stayed together for hours in a hotel room, with similar encounters continuing on later trips. Heather Ammel says she discovered additional messages in 2024, confronted her husband, and learned that Sinema had offered him a salaried position as a defense and national security fellow on her Senate staff, after which he pushed for divorce and the couple separated in November 2024, while records show Ammel was paid at least partly from Sinema’s campaign account from mid-2024 to late 2025.
While the House passed a resolution in 2018 banning members from having sexual relationships with employees, the Senate did not adopt the rule, leaving senators outside that restriction, though Sinema previously faced scrutiny over alleged staff misuse. Sinema, who served one term and now works as a lobbyist at Hogan Lovells, has lobbied for data centers and for ibogaine as a treatment for traumatic brain injury, and in a March interview with the Phoenix New Times praised the drug’s “literally lifesaving” benefits, citing Ammel by name and saying, “I saw the difference it was making in his life, his thinking and his behavior.”