Former senator Kyrsten Sinema took the stand in a North Carolina federal courtroom this week to describe the moment her bodyguard's wife discovered their relationship, through a misdelivered message on an encrypted app.
Sinema, 50, testified Wednesday in Winston-Salem that she sent a Signal message reading "I miss you" to her bodyguard, Matthew Ammel, on October 3, 2024. The reply that came back was not from him. It was from his wife, Heather Ammel: "Are you having an affair with my husband?" Sinema did not respond.
That exchange sits at the center of a civil lawsuit Heather Ammel filed against the former Arizona senator under North Carolina's "alienation of affection" statute, a law that allows a spouse to sue the person they believe broke up their marriage. Heather Ammel is seeking more than $75,000 in damages. She and Matthew Ammel have since divorced.
Heather Ammel also testified Wednesday. She told the federal court that Sinema had "groomed" her then-husband, answering "Yes" when asked whether the former senator's conduct amounted to grooming. Sinema has previously admitted to having sex with Matthew Ammel in multiple cities beginning in May 2024, the New York Post reported.
Heather Ammel described the power imbalance she faced in blunt terms:
"It's me against a United States senator who has power and money. And she had her hook in him."
She added separately: "I felt completely powerless."
The testimony painted a picture of a wife who discovered the affair not through a private investigator or a tip from a friend, but because her husband's employer sent him a romantic message on Signal and the wrong person saw it. Matthew Ammel had been struggling with depression, Heather Ammel told the court.
North Carolina is one of a handful of states that still recognizes alienation of affection as a cause of action, sometimes called the "homewrecker law." Heather Ammel filed suit in her home state, but Sinema pushed the case into federal court in January, arguing that the affair took place outside North Carolina.
That jurisdictional maneuver is the clearest window into Sinema's legal strategy. If the relationship played out entirely in other states, her attorneys can argue that North Carolina law should not apply. Sinema admitted to encounters with Matthew Ammel across multiple cities, but the specific locations, and whether any were inside North Carolina, remain contested ground the trial has not yet resolved publicly.
The case raises a question that goes beyond tabloid curiosity. Alienation-of-affection statutes exist precisely to hold third parties accountable when they interfere in a marriage. Sinema was not just any third party. She was a sitting United States senator, and Matthew Ammel was on her personal security detail, a professional relationship with a built-in power differential that Heather Ammel's "grooming" allegation directly targets.
Sinema left the Senate in January 2025 after declining to seek reelection. She had switched her party affiliation from Democrat to independent in December 2022. The lawsuit, filed the year before trial, followed her out of office and into a Winston-Salem courtroom where the details of her private life are now part of the public record.
The trial is ongoing. Key questions remain unanswered: the full scope of Sinema's testimony beyond the Signal message, whether Matthew Ammel will testify, and how the court will weigh the jurisdictional dispute that could determine whether the case survives at all.
Accountability does not stop at the Senate door. If the law allows a spouse to seek damages when someone with power and position breaks apart a marriage, it ought to apply the same way whether the defendant is a private citizen or a former officeholder.
