Sinema Sued Over Alleged Affair With Bodyguard While Senator

The ex-wife of Krysten Sinema’s one-time bodyguard says the former senator and current Hogan Lovells counsel had an affair with her husband while in office.

Heather Ammel is suing Sinema for “alienation of affection,” according to a lawsuit filed in federal court on Tuesday. Ammel alleges Sinema intentionally broke up Ammel’s 14-year marriage to her husband, Matthew, with whom she has three children.

In the suit, which was originally filed in a North Carolina court last fall, Ammel says she discovered electronic messages between Sinema and her husband. The messages indicated the two were having an affair and showed that Sinema encouraged her Army veteran husband to use MDMA and offered to guide him through “a psychedelic experience.” Ammel also said Sinema paid for her husband to receive a “psychedelic treatment.”

Sinema and Matthew Ammel appeared together at a panel discussion in October, according to a LinkedIn post—several weeks after Heather Ammel filed her initial complaint.

Sinema served one six-year term in the Senate, initially as a Democrat, then switching to become an Independent. She was known as one of the most moderate Democrats in the Senate at a time when it was evenly split between the two parties, but she didn’t pursue reelection and left the Senate at the beginning of 2025.

She joined Hogan Lovells shortly thereafter to become a senior adviser in its global regulatory and intellectual property practice group in Washington DC.

Ammel’s lawsuit alleges that her husband began providing security for Sinema in 2022 and that he was hired as a Defense and National Security Fellow on her Senate staff two years later, after their alleged affair had begun.

Ammel, represented by North Carolina litigator Thomas Van Camp, is asking the court to award her at least $75,000 in compensatory and punitive damages along with attorneys’ fees. Sinema, her attorney Lamar Armstrong, and Hogan Lovells did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The case is Ammel v. Sinema, M.D.N.C., No. 26-cv-00038, petition for removal, 1/13/26.