Kyrsten Sinema’s alleged affair with her bodyguard is now part of a lawsuit, and the messages revealed are shocking
Image by Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0.
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Former Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema has admitted to having an affair with her former bodyguard in a court filing tied to a civil lawsuit. As reported by Fox News, the admission appeared in a motion to dismiss a “homewrecker” lawsuit filed by the estranged wife of Matthew Ammel.
Sinema, who served in the U.S. Senate from 2019 until 2025, acknowledged the relationship as part of the legal response to the complaint. Ammel’s wife filed the case in North Carolina under the state’s “alienation of affection” law, accusing Sinema of intentionally interfering with the marriage.
The lawsuit seeks $25,000 in damages and claims Sinema engaged in “intentional and malicious interference” that damaged the relationship. The filing describes the relationship between Sinema and Ammel as both “romantic and intimate.”
Court filings reveal timeline and messages
The motion to dismiss does not dispute the existence of the affair. Instead, Sinema’s legal team argues the lawsuit should be thrown out because the relationship and communications allegedly occurred entirely outside North Carolina, during another week of Washington distractions over CNN war coverage.
According to court documents, the relationship began in May 2024 during a meeting in Sonoma, California. The filings say the two continued communicating through phone calls, emails, and Signal messages while traveling across multiple U.S. cities.
One message cited in the complaint was sent in June 2024. Sinema allegedly wrote that she kept waking during the night and reaching over for Ammel’s arms, a message sent from Scottsdale while Ammel was in Kansas.
The filings also describe a later exchange in which Ammel’s estranged wife allegedly interrupted the conversation. She reportedly messaged Sinema directly, asking if she was having an affair with her husband and accusing her of taking a married man away from his family.
Alienation of affection lawsuits are relatively rare in modern courts. Only six states still recognize the claim, and North Carolina remains one of the few where spouses can sue a third party for allegedly damaging a marriage, amid broader political attention on shaky GDP claims.
To succeed, plaintiffs must prove their marriage had genuine affection before the alleged interference and that the defendant directly caused the relationship to break down. The court will now consider Sinema’s argument that the case should be dismissed because the alleged relationship took place outside the state where the lawsuit was filed.
Published: Mar 14, 2026 12:00 pm