Krysten Sinema’s Scandalous August

Having missionary position sex with the lights on is “Boring!” texted then-Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema to her bodyguard and future lover Matthew Ammel in 2024. But the Sinema case, which the North Carolina legal system is currently batting around, has been anything but boring. U.S. District Judge David A. Bragdon is deciding a threshold question: does North Carolina have enough connection to Sinema’s alleged conduct to hear the case of Heather Ammel, Matthew Ammel’s ex-wife?

Sinema doesn’t deny the affair. She says North Carolina is the wrong state to sue her in. Heather Ammel claims Sinema sent a romantic message into the Ammel family’s North Carolina home and the injury landed there. Regardless, the romantic shenanigans of Arizona’s former senator are the spiciest political story of the summer.

The last month has been, frankly, delicious for gossip watchers, if not for the actual people involved in the case. On July 31, both women sat down for depositions in the same Raleigh law office, Poyner Spruill. Each woman watched the other testify about the same affair before lunch.

Heather Ammel’s lawyer, Thomas Van Camp, asked how the romance began. Sinema’s answer was admirably free of euphemism: “We were outside. Matt kissed me. We went inside and had sex.” She put it around Memorial Day 2024, at an Airbnb in Napa Valley, California, at roughly 1 or 2 am. Also at the Airbnb were another security man, Zach, and Sinema’s Arizona friends Penny and Grant Croissant. When Van Camp asked whether they spelled their surname like the bread, Sinema answered, “Like the pastry.”

Sinema then placed later (pastry-free) encounters in mid-June at the Edition Hotel in Manhattan, where she was attending the wedding of CNN anchor Jessica Dean and Blackstone’s Alex Katz; in mid-July at her Washington apartment after a red-eye from Los Angeles, in the morning before work; in late August in Aspen on a fundraising trip; in late September in Washington; and on Oct. 2 at her Phoenix-area home. She said she couldn’t recall the circumstances of the late-September encounter.

Sinema testified she knew by December 2023 that Matthew was married and had three children. She also confirmed that the sexual relationship ran from late May 2024 through the July 31, 2026 deposition– not merely through the Ammels’ separation. Shown an allegation that she had sent a towel photo showing cupping marks, Sinema rejected the idea that a boss sending that image to a married security-detail member was inherently inappropriate. Her explanation: “I’m an endurance athlete.” She said the cupping marks were about sports and said she didn’t remember the towel aspect of the photo.

Heather Ammel testified that on a June 2024 family trip to Leavenworth, Kansas, Matthew came home extremely drunk. Suspicious, she got into his phone and found Signal messages from Sinema. She took screenshots and sent them to herself. She said those messages confirmed what she had already suspected. Under oath, she read a text that she sent to Matthew: “She’s insidious…she’s a homewrecker…she has you in her web now.” These would, we think, make excellent Olivia Rodrigo lyrics.

As the court and the media have stripped the July 31 transcript for parts, one Signal message from Sinema is proving to be most important to the decision of whether or not to try this in North Carolina. says Sinema sent Matthew this on or around Oct. 3, 2024, after he had been with Sinema in Phoenix: “I miss you. Putting my hand on your heart. I’ll see you soon.” Heather says Matthew was back at the marital home in North Carolina for their daughter’s birthday when Sinema called. She says she picked up his phone and answered, “Are you having an affair with my husband?” Sinema testified July 31 that she saw Heather’s question and did not answer it: “I did not want to respond.” Sinema’s position is that she did not know where Matthew was when she sent the message.

Yesterday, both Sinema and Heather Ammel testified live in Winston-Salem before Judge Bragdon. Sinema was quite unsentimental about the affair. She resisted the idea that she conducted the relationship because of romantic yearning during the final months of her Senate career. Asked about the tone of the message, she said, “I’m not like that.” She portrayed the physical relationship as something Matthew initiated when the opportunity arose.

Heather told the court she believed Sinema had taken advantage of her depressed and vulnerable husband. She said, “I felt completely powerless.” And: “It’s me against a United States senator who has power and money.”

Text messages aired at the hearing showed Matthew telling Heather in June 2024 that he hated her and didn’t want to be married, and accusing her of hitting him. Heather acknowledged throwing a phone at Matthew during an earlier fight after a Raleigh comedy show. She also acknowledged that Sinema had helped Matthew out of a deep depression, even as she argued Sinema exploited that vulnerability. None of this establishes who caused the marriage to collapse; it does give Sinema a ready-made answer to the word ‘homewrecker.’

What a mess. The immediate next events are the narrow follow-up deposition of Matthew and Bragdon’s written jurisdiction ruling. If Sinema wins, that ends the North Carolina case at this stage (subject to any appeal). If Heather wins, the case finally moves past the doorway and toward the kind of discovery and merits fight that could produce much more material about the relationship, travel, security arrangements and the state of the Ammel marriage. For the sake of those involved, we hope it all resolves quickly. For the sake of people who enjoy scabrous political gossip, we hope it goes on forever.