Former Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema is, as you are likely aware, an absolute pain in the ass who used her term to block an increase to the despicably low federal minimum wage and prevent the filibuster reform that would have allowed Congress to codify abortion rights, among many other indefensible things. After leaving office in January 2025, Sinema is now a lobbyist for psychedelics and cryptocurrency—and also a defendant in a federal lawsuit filed by a North Carolina woman, Heather Ammel, who claims Sinema stole her husband.
Sinema is facing a civil lawsuit under what’s known as an “alienation of affection” law, which allows a spouse to sue a third party for interfering with their marriage. This type of statute is colloquially known as the “homewrecker law,” so that’s fun. As of 2019, at least six states still had homewrecker laws on the books: Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. (While Illinois was included in the linked list, the state repealed its law in 2016.) Utah lawmakers are currently considering whether to abolish these kinds of lawsuits.
The lawsuit was filed in state court in September, but it only gained attention after a judge recently agreed to transfer it to federal court. Sinema requested it be transferred to federal court in part because she doesn’t live in North Carolina.
Notably, the allegations date back to Sinema’s time in office. Ammel alleges in her complaint that Sinema engaged in an affair with her now-estranged husband, Matthew Ammel, who began working as Sinema’s bodyguard in April 2022. (A few months later, in December of that year, Sinema left the Democratic Party and registered as an independent.)
Heather alleges that, in 2023 and 2024, Sinema seduced and had sex with Matthew while knowing that he was married. She claims Sinema sent him text messages on Signal that were “romantic and lascivious”—including a photo of her wrapped in a towel—and encouraged Matthew to leave Heather. Matthew, an Army veteran, became a member of Sinema’s Senate staff in the summer of 2024; Sinema hired him as a national security fellow in her office while he continued to work for her campaign as a bodyguard.
WRAL reports that “during his time in the role, he regularly accompanied Sinema to events, festivals and concerts, including a U2 concert at the Sphere in Las Vegas, a Green Day concert in Washington with one of the Ammels’ children and a Taylor Swift concert in Miami.”
Heather says in the complaint that she discovered the texts in early 2024 and that Matthew stopped wearing his wedding ring in May or June, around the time he got a promotion. He told Heather it was for “public optics” because Sinema had gotten “handsy” with him at a recent concert in Arizona and was continuing to put her hands on him.
Heather alleges that Sinema suggested Matthew, who has PTSD from his military service, bring MDMA “on a work trip so that she could guide him through a psychedelic experience” and paid for a psychedelic treatment for him in Nashville. It’s unclear if that treatment was for ibogaine, the drug derived from the root of a shrub found in Central Africa that she’s currently hyping as a lobbyist.
The Ammels separated in November 2024, at which point Matthew moved out. The complaint said that, in September 2025, Sinema came with Matthew to the family’s house to get the rest of his belongings, though she waited in the car. Heather is suing Sinema for at least $75,000 for the costs involved in that separation and for emotional distress.
WRAL also noted that Matthew now lives in Maricopa County, Arizona, while Sinema is a resident of Cave Creek—a town in Maricopa County. The implication is that they’re either living really close to each other or that Matthew moved in.
Normally, I love mess, but I have to hate all of this because someone as loathsome as Sinema is involved.
More barf:
- President Donald Trump blurted out that the civil rights movement led to “white people [being] very badly treated.” I’m just going to leave this here. [New York Times]
- DHS Secretary Kristi Noem sure seemed to suggest that people need to carry around papers to prove they’re U.S. citizens. [NBC New York/The Daily Beast]
- Employees at CBS News raised internal alarms after their outlet claimed that Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who murdered Renee Good, suffered internal bleeding. The report cited two anonymous U.S. officials, and some workers viewed it as “carrying water” for the Trump administration. [The Guardian]
- Federal data contradicts Kristi Noem’s claim that ICE has hired 12,000 new agents; the data suggests about 7,100 hires. One recent hire, however, was a journalist who purposely didn’t submit required paperwork, including an attestation that she’d never been convicted of domestic violence. [NOTUS/Slate]
- A Detroit autoworker called Trump a “pedophile protector” during his factory visit and the president responded by saying fuck you twice and flipping him off. The working people’s champion, everyone! [Washington Post]
- Congressional Republicans are rallying around a bill they claim would crack down on insider trading, but the proposal would only ban lawmakers from buying more individual stocks—it wouldn’t require them to sell ones they already own! [Wall Street Journal]
- Headline: “France delays G7 to avoid clash with White House cage fighting on Trump’s birthday” [Politico]
- Sen. Lindsey Graham testifying before a grand jury in the 2022 Georgia election interference case: “If you told [Trump] Martians came and stole votes [in 2020], he’d be inclined to believe it.” [New York Times]
This has been your Friday Barf Bag, thanks for reading!
