New court filings this week put Kyrsten Sinema’s secret relationship with Matthew Ammel on the record in unusual detail, including her account that it began with a late-night kiss and first sex in the backyard of an Airbnb on Memorial Day weekend in 2024. Sinema’s July 31 deposition was filed in the United States District Court in North Carolina, turning a private breakup dispute into sworn testimony with a court date now set for Aug. 19.
Heather is suing Sinema over allegations that the affair broke up her 14-year marriage to Matthew Ammel, and the deposition gives her case fresh fuel. Sinema said the next time she and Ammel were together was at Jessica Dean’s wedding to Alex Katz in New York in mid-June 2024, where she said they met in public alongside Chuck Schumer, Richie Torres and Kaitlan Collins. The filing also says Sinema and Ammel later had other encounters at her home in Arizona and in Aspen, Colorado, where she was for a fundraiser.
That detail matters because the affair timeline is now laid out in a court file rather than in rumor, and Sinema said she was single at the time. She also said Ammel told her as early as January 2024 that he wanted to divorce Heather, and that he had described trouble at home by saying Heather had hit him and thrown a phone in his face.
The case is not just about who said what happened, but where it happened. Sinema’s lawyers have asked to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, and she said the affair never took place within North Carolina even though the lawsuit and deposition are filed there. Heather’s side will now have to press its case in a court that must first decide whether it can hear it at all.
Sinema’s account also reaches into the public part of the relationship. She said she, Ammel and the Ammels attended a Taylor Swift Eras tour concert together in Miami over the Oct. 18-20 weekend, and that Heather had messaged her before the concert to ask whether she was sleeping with her husband. Sinema did not answer, and she said their interactions at the show were normal. The hearing on Aug. 19 will determine whether the case moves forward on the merits or ends at the courthouse door.
