Sinema’s ‘Homewrecker’ Lawsuit Heads to a Judge

Kyrsten Sinema is asking a federal judge to throw out the “homewrecker” lawsuit filed against her in North Carolina — and the court filings that have emerged in the process are something else entirely.

The former U.S. senator from Arizona, who served as a Democrat before switching to Independent in 2022, is at the center of a lawsuit brought by Heather Ammel, the estranged wife of Matthew Ammel — a U.S. Army veteran who worked as Sinema’s personal security guard and, according to court documents, became her lover. Heather Ammel filed the suit in January, accusing Sinema of destroying her 14-year marriage and invoking one of the rarest laws still on the books in America: North Carolina’s alienation-of-affection statute, colloquially known as the “homewrecker” law.

U.S. District Judge David Bragdon, who joined the federal bench in December, will now decide whether the case moves forward or gets dismissed before it ever reaches trial.

Sinema’s Defense: ‘Random and Fortuitous’

Sinema’s legal team has filed papers arguing she has no substantial connection to North Carolina — the legal threshold required for the state’s courts to have jurisdiction over her. Her communications with Matthew Ammel, including the text messages that Heather Ammel says tipped her off to the affair, were sent from Arizona and Washington, D.C., Sinema’s lawyers argue. Any contact that did happen in North Carolina, they say, was “random and fortuitous.”

To make that case, Sinema went further than most people would probably want to go in a court filing — detailing the dates and locations of approximately six sexual encounters with her then-security guard throughout 2024. The relationship, she argues, was lived out almost entirely elsewhere: on luxe trips to Napa Valley and Saudi Arabia, and at events like a Las Vegas gathering where Matthew Ammel sipped Dom Perignon alongside Sinema and Cindy McCain.

As for her visits to North Carolina, Sinema says she only went there after the Ammels had already begun separating. One of those visits, according to court papers, was particularly brazen: Sinema “sat out in the parking lot during (Heather Ammel) and Mr. Ammel’s domestic mediation at (Heather Ammel’s) counsel’s office.”

The Texts at the Center of It All

Heather Ammel’s legal team isn’t buying any of it. Her lawyers argue that North Carolina’s homewrecker law doesn’t require every act to have taken place in the state — only that the actions damaged a marriage there. Previous cases have established that even phone calls can count as evidence of marital interference. “North Carolina courts have repeatedly demonstrated the importance of protecting marriage,” her attorney argued in filings.

The most talked-about piece of evidence is a text message Sinema allegedly sent Matthew Ammel while he was at home in North Carolina — a photo of herself wrapped in a white towel, showing her bare upper back marked with what Heather Ammel described as cupping bruises. Sinema’s lawyers pointedly noted that the actual photo was “conspicuously absent” from the filings, even as other text messages were included.

What is included is the exchange that followed. According to the suit, Matthew Ammel responded to the photo by saying “she needed more iron in her diet,” to which Sinema allegedly replied: “show me a woman who doesn’t.”

Sinema’s team has not disputed that the texts were sent. Their argument is about geography, not content.

Matthew Ammel’s Own Legal Troubles

Matthew Ammel has remained a visible presence in Sinema’s orbit even as the legal drama unfolded. He appeared alongside her at the Arizona Legislature in 2025, when she advocated for state funding to trial ibogaine — a psychedelic drug being studied for its potential benefits in treating veterans with traumatic brain injuries. He’s also listed as a fellow with Arizona State University’s office of university affairs and appeared with Sinema at the Future Security Forum, an event ASU co-hosted last fall.

But not long after that forum, things took a dark turn. Matthew Ammel, who has documented brain injuries from his military service, allegedly had a violent outburst in North Carolina on November 20 that resulted in felony assault charges. According to reports, the incident involved an attack on a medical worker who told Ammel he couldn’t leave due to an involuntary commitment order related to erratic behavior and threats. He’s due back in Moore County District Court in Carthage, North Carolina, on May 11. The Ammels’ divorce case was reportedly reopened around the same time.

The Judge Overseeing It All

There’s an added layer of intrigue in who gets to decide this case. Judge Bragdon was nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump and was confirmed over the objections of Senate Democrats, who dug up a personal website he ran in the late 1990s. The site was titled “David Bragdon’s Radical Conservative, Republican, Libertarian Home Page” and included views on abortion that raised eyebrows — including a line that a “woman knows the risk when she chooses not to use birth control and thus must face the consequences.”

Bragdon, who once clerked for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, distanced himself from those old posts during his confirmation hearings. “I wrote my website more than 25 years ago. I have no independent memory of what I meant at the time beyond what is written on the website itself,” he said in written responses to senators.

When Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware asked him directly what role morality plays in judging a law’s legality, Bragdon’s answer was careful: “Judges should not decide cases based on their personal views or policy preferences but rather based on the laws of the United States.”

That answer will be put to the test. The alienation-of-affection law at the heart of this case is precisely the kind of statute that blends legal standards with moral judgment — and fewer and fewer states still have it. North Carolina is one of the last holdouts. Whatever Bragdon decides, the ruling will likely draw attention well beyond the Sinema case, potentially shaping how these rare laws are applied going forward.