A North Carolina judge has cleared the way for a "homewrecker" lawsuit against former U.S. Senator Kyrsten Sinema, allowing the case brought by the ex-wife of Sinema's married security guard to proceed past an early dismissal challenge. The ruling keeps alive one of the more unusual civil claims to ensnare a former member of Congress in recent memory.
Heather Ammel, the ex-wife of security guard Matthew Ammel, filed the suit under North Carolina's alienation of affection statute, a civil cause of action that allows a spouse to sue a third party for interfering with a marriage. Only a handful of states still recognize the claim, and North Carolina is one of them. The law does not require proof of a sexual relationship, but the facts alleged here go well beyond the statutory minimum.
The case gained new detail when court filings containing Sinema's deposition testimony became public. In that testimony, Sinema confirmed a sexual affair with Matthew Ammel that began around Memorial Day 2024 at an Airbnb in Napa, California.
Sinema described the start of the relationship in plain terms during her deposition:
"We were staying at an Airbnb in Napa, California. We were outside. Matt kissed me. We went inside and had sex."
The encounters did not stop in wine country. Sinema testified that the affair spanned multiple locations throughout 2024, including New York City, Washington, D.C., Aspen, Colorado, and Phoenix. She acknowledged under oath that she knew Ammel was married and had three children during every one of those encounters.
That admission is central to the legal theory. Under North Carolina's alienation of affection framework, a plaintiff must show that a genuine love and affection existed between the spouses, that the marital relationship was destroyed, and that the defendant's conduct was a proximate cause of that destruction. Knowledge of the marriage, while not strictly required, strengthens the claim that the third party acted with disregard for the existing relationship.
Heather Ammel read aloud a text message Sinema had sent to Matthew Ammel, adding an emotional dimension to the court record. The message read:
"I hope your day was okay. Thinking of you. I am with you. I keep waking up during my sleep and reaching over for your arms to hold me."
That language suggests sustained emotional intimacy, not a single lapse in judgment. For purposes of an alienation of affection claim, evidence of deep emotional attachment between the defendant and the plaintiff's spouse can be just as damaging as evidence of physical encounters. Here, Heather Ammel appears to have both.
The text also undercuts any potential defense that the relationship was casual or that Sinema played a minor role in the breakdown of the Ammel marriage. Repeated expressions of longing and emotional dependence paint a picture of a relationship that occupied significant space in both parties' lives.
Alienation of affection claims carry real financial exposure. North Carolina juries have returned seven-figure verdicts in these cases, and the state's appellate courts have consistently upheld the tort against constitutional challenges. Critics call the law archaic, a relic of an era when wives were treated as property. Defenders argue it protects the institution of marriage and gives injured spouses a civil remedy when a third party deliberately targets their relationship.
The judge's decision to let the case move forward means Sinema will face discovery, potential trial, and the possibility of a damages award. Dismissal at this stage would have required the court to find that Heather Ammel's complaint failed to state a viable claim even if every allegation were taken as true. The court clearly found otherwise.
Sinema, who represented Arizona first as a Democrat and later as an independent, left the Senate in January 2025 after choosing not to seek reelection. The affair with her security guard occurred during her final year in office, as Fox News first reported. The timing raises its own set of questions about the professional relationship between a sitting senator and a member of her security detail.
Matthew Ammel served as Sinema's bodyguard. That role creates an inherent power imbalance. He was, in a professional sense, subordinate to the person he was protecting. Whether that dynamic played any role in the initiation or continuation of the affair is not addressed in the public filings. But the employer-employee overlay adds a layer of complexity that separates this case from a standard alienation of affection dispute between private citizens.
Sinema has not publicly commented on the lawsuit beyond her deposition testimony. Her legal team's strategy going forward remains unclear. Possible defenses in alienation of affection cases typically include arguing that the marriage was already broken before the defendant entered the picture, or that the defendant's conduct was not the proximate cause of the marital collapse. Whether any of those defenses will gain traction here depends on facts that have not yet been fully litigated.
With the motion to dismiss denied, the case enters the discovery and pretrial phase. Heather Ammel's legal team will likely seek additional communications, travel records, and testimony from witnesses who may have observed the relationship. Sinema's attorneys will have the opportunity to depose Heather Ammel and challenge the claimed damages.
Investigators of the civil variety, meaning the lawyers on both sides, will need to establish the state of the Ammel marriage before the affair began. That factual question often determines the outcome in alienation of affection cases. A marriage already in serious decline is harder to "alienate" than one that was stable.
No trial date has been publicly announced. The case remains in its early stages, but the deposition testimony already on the record gives it a factual foundation that many alienation claims lack at this point in the proceedings.
North Carolina's willingness to keep this centuries-old cause of action on the books means that even former United States senators are not beyond its reach. The law does not care about your title. It cares about whether you broke up someone's family.
