Judge denies Kyrsten Sinema's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, citing nine messages sent into North Carolina

A federal judge in North Carolina has decided that a civil suit against Kyrsten Sinema may go forward, and the decision turns on a count of nine messages. The ruling settles nothing about whether a marriage was broken. It settles where the question may be asked.

The case is docketed as Ammel v. Sinema, 1:26-cv-00038, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. The docket names District Judge David A. Bragdon, alongside a magistrate judge, Joi Elizabeth Peake. The order refusing to dismiss the case carries the signature block of David A. Bragdon, United States District Judge, and its operative line is short: the court denies Sinema's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.

In the captured coverage, the story travels under a nickname. The three news pages captured for this piece - NBC News, the Associated Press account carried by WTOP, and KJZZ in Phoenix - each carry the word "homewrecker" in the web address of the story, so all three reach for the same nickname. KJZZ's address also identifies Sinema as a former Arizona senator. What sits behind the nickname is a civil tort. The defense filing itself names it as the plaintiff's claim for alienation of affection; no criminal charge is part of this record.

Sinema's side of the argument was made in a filing the docket records as a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, brought by her, with a supporting memorandum entered as a defendant's memorandum on that same motion. Its proposition was that she directed no conduct into North Carolina capable of giving rise to the alienation-of-affection claim, and that jurisdiction therefore failed on due process grounds.

The brief did not dispute the relationship. As Carolina Journal quotes it, the filing acknowledges a romantic relationship with Matthew Ammel beginning in May 2024, about five months before he separated from his wife. The argument was geographic. During the relevant period, the brief states, Ammel was traveling outside North Carolina for at least three jobs all but a few days a month; every telephone call and email is documented, and none of them, on the filing's account, occurred while he was in North Carolina; the Signal messages the plaintiff pointed to were sent, it says, when he was somewhere else. From that the brief draws the sentence the court would have to answer: the relationship "occurred exclusively outside of North Carolina."

Running alongside it is a first-person passage the captured page carries with no framing text: "I had no knowledge at the time I initiated any communications with Mr. Ammel that he was located in North Carolina." The captured Carolina Journal page attaches no speaker line to that sentence, so it is reported here as the document's rather than as anyone's spoken words. The same page carries a second first-person denial, rejecting the allegation of soliciting Ammel through lascivious telephone and internet communications.

The order answers with a count. The court credits the plaintiff's account that she saw nine Signal messages from Sinema on her husband's phone while he was in North Carolina, and finds her credible in describing the existence and the context of those messages. On that footing the court concludes that Sinema "purposefully availed herself of the privilege of conducting activities in North Carolina by sending nine messages."

Why the wife's eyes rather than a message log? The order records that both phones were set to delete messages eight hours after they were read. On this desk's reading, that detail explains the shape of the jurisdictional record: with the messages gone, a spouse's contemporaneous observation became the evidence, and the credibility contest that followed was not a side dispute - it was the proof.

The standard the court applied is the one the order recites: a defendant who "expressly aimed" tortious conduct at the forum, "such that the forum can be said to be the focal point." The order finds North Carolina was the "focal point" of the alleged tortious conduct. Two findings carry that conclusion. The order states that Sinema knew Mr. Ammel was married, lived in North Carolina, and had children there. On her claim that she did not know his location when she sent the messages, the court reasons that she knew he was not with her or her staff and was therefore likely at home in the state, and treats as implausible the notion that he had left before 6:22 a.m. to catch the flight she testified she knew he planned to take. Both NBC News and the AP account describe the same reasoning: the judge found "it implausible that she was unaware of Ammel's whereabouts when she texted him."

Then comes the finding that will travel with this case further than the jurisdictional holding does.

Ms. Sinema's testimony on several key matters has not been credible, with portions of her declaration contradicted by her testimony

The order also takes the measure of the marriage. It finds that although the relationship between Mr. and Ms. Ammel was turbulent in 2024, there was still genuine love; the AP account carried by WTOP and the KJZZ report both render the finding as a good and loving marriage, and WTOP's page carries the phrase "genuine love and affection." The order describes the alleged conduct as "invading the marriage not just while he was away on trips with her but while he was home with his family." KJZZ's account reduces the whole jurisdictional question to the same arithmetic the court used: nine text messages she sent Ammel while he was in the state.

What the order does not do is decide the case. The denial rests on a showing of personal jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence - a threshold, not a verdict. No liability has been found and no damages awarded. The ruling is interlocutory - that is general procedure, not something the captured record states: such a ruling can be revisited, taken up on appeal by permission, or overtaken by a settlement. Coverage framing this as a ruling that Sinema can be sued is accurate and easy to misread.

On comment: the NBC News and WTOP pages each carry the same line, that the recipient of an approach "did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment." The captured text on both pages does not name who was asked. As of September 5, when this piece was researched, neither side had responded to this desk; the request for comment is required before publication and is recorded by a human editor rather than by the writer of this piece.

The next thing a reader can check is the docket itself. Ammel v. Sinema, 1:26-cv-00038 is public on CourtListener, and the entries after this order will show which way the case turns; as a matter of general procedure, that could mean an answer and discovery, a request to take the jurisdictional question up on appeal, or a line reporting settlement. The prediction this desk will stand behind is narrow, and it follows from what the order actually decided rather than from any timetable the captured record supplies: by Dec. 31, 2026, that docket will show no judgment on the merits of the alienation-of-affection claim. Jurisdiction was the only question answered. What the nine messages said, and what if anything is owed for them, is still open.