Litigation against Sinema moved to federal court

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(The Center Square) – Litigation against former Arizona U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema by a woman from the North Carolina Sandhills has been moved from state to federal court.

Heather Ammel of Moore County says Sinema had an affair with her husband Matthew Ammel while he was in a security detail for her in 2023 and 2024. The couple separated in November 2024, about five months after he was named a defense and national security fellow on the congresswoman’s staff and had stopped wearing his wedding band.

The filing was made in Moore County Superior Court in September. This week, Sinema’s lawyers shifted the case to federal jurisdiction in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.

North Carolina is one of six states with alienation of affection laws. The others are Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, Utah and South Dakota.

The litigation, 15 pages in length, gives the plaintiff’s account of the relationship inclusive of trips; concerts; and use of 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine drugs more commonly known as MDMA, Molly and Ecstasy.

Relief in compensatory damages of at least $25,000 and “punitive damages for defendant’s willful and wanton conduct” is sought.

Heather and Matthew Ammel lived together with their three children prior to his being hired on her staff.

Sinema, 49, had already left the Green Party to join Democrats when she won the first of three terms in the Arizona House of Representatives. After a term in the state Senate, she succeeded retiring U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake with a win in the 2018 midterms becoming the first openly bisexual woman in the chamber.

Sinema left the Democratic Party on Dec. 9, 2022, to become independent and give the chamber four – Sens. Bernie Sanders, Angus King and Joe Manchin were the others. King and Sanders remain.

Sinema is with Hogan Lovells in Washington, a legal and lobbying firm.