Kyrsten Sinema’s bodyguard ex-lover arrested over trashing her home in $200k rampage after he issued shock ultimatum
Former senator Kyrsten Sinema’s bodyguard-turned-lover has been arrested after an alleged $200,000 rampage through her $2 million Arizona home.
Matthew Ammel, 39, threatened to ‘damage her paintings every 10 minutes’ unless she posted a video on her X account, according to court documents obtained by Arizona’s Family.
Sinema refused to post the video. The court filings do not say what it shows. Ammel then allegedly pulled 22 paintings from the walls and hurled them into her backyard pool.
The ex-senator was out of town when her five-bedroom home in the Cave Creek suburb of Phoenix was trashed on August 30.
Another painting found near the front door had been ‘spray-painted with black lettering,’ Maricopa County sheriff’s deputies said.
Ammel is also accused of smashing expensive bottles of liquor, littering the house and pool with broken glass. Sinema said he shattered a large wall-mounted mirror by hurling a glass bottle at it.
Investigators valued the paintings at $123,015 and put the total damage, including the home and pool, at more than $200,000.
Ammel’s ex-wife Heather is suing Sinema under North Carolina’s ‘homewrecker’ law, accusing the former Democratic lawmaker of ruining her 14-year marriage while Ammel served on her Washington, DC, security detail. Sinema admits the affair.
Matthew Ammel, 39, is charged with one count of criminal damage, a class 4 felony, court records show
Kyrsten Sinema walks through the Hart Senate Office Building in April, 2023
Sinema handed deputies texts, videos and surveillance footage allegedly showing Ammel destroying her property. Investigators identified him from the video.
Ammel, an Army veteran, is charged with one count of criminal damage, a class 4 felony carrying up to four years in prison, court records show.
He was arrested on September 17 after being released from a behavioral health center, where he had been taken following a petition for an involuntary psychiatric evaluation.
Ammel did not appear before a judge in person at his first hearing. ‘They’re saying that he’s combative and he’s in the hallway,’ a deputy said during the recorded hearing.
He was released wearing an electronic monitor and is due back in court on October 1.
A construction crew was spotted building a wall around Sinema’s property on Wednesday, with one worker telling Arizona’s Family they had been on the job for about two weeks.
A neighbor said Sinema had planned the extra security since moving into the home more than a year ago because she had received threats. He believes Ammel once lived at the house, recalling seeing his truck parked outside and him doing yard work.
The alleged rampage unfolded less than two weeks after Sinema testified about their relationship at a federal hearing in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Heather Ammel exits a court in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on August 19
Sinema at a hearing in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, on August 19
Heather Ammel is seeking at least $75,000 in damages under the state’s rare ‘alienation of affection’ law, which lets spouses sue a third party for the breakdown of their marriage.
The suit claims Sinema embarked on an affair with Heather’s special forces veteran husband shortly after he was hired to her security team in 2022.
Ammel allegedly told his wife Sinema got ‘handsy’ with him at a Tempe music festival in March 2024.
The suit also claims Sinema told Ammel to bring MDMA, also known as ecstasy, on a work trip in 2023 so she could ‘guide him through a psychedelic experience.’
Sinema testified in a July deposition that the relationship turned sexual on May 27, 2024, on a visit to Napa.
She said later encounters took place in New York, Washington, Colorado and Arizona, but never in North Carolina.
Sinema argued she could not be sued in North Carolina. US District Judge David Bragdon disagreed this month, ruling that nine texts she sent Ammel while he was there gave the court jurisdiction.
Bragdon also took a swipe at Ammel in a footnote, writing that he ‘does not have a record of telling the truth in this matter.’
Ammel was paid more than $90,000 for six months work in her Senate office, according to congressional salary database Legistorm.
Sinema quit the Democratic Party to become an independent during her single Senate term and did not seek reelection in 2024. She is now a senior adviser at Washington law firm Hogan Lovells.
