A staff member for Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) who died last year after lighting herself on fire had allegedly had an affair with the congressman, according to the staffer’s estranged husband.
Gonzales, who faces a tough primary challenge from the right in his sprawling district along the border, has denied any improper relationship with the aide, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles. Addressing the matter at an event last year, the married father of six said the “rumors are completely untruthful.” His office did not respond to repeated requests for comment Thursday.
But the aide’s husband, Adrian Aviles, said Santos-Aviles confessed the affair to him in June 2024, according to an account relayed by his lawyer, who said he has also seen texts that he says confirm the affair. Upon arriving home one day, Aviles said he noticed his wife texting Gonzales and asked to see her messages.
The Washington Post has not been able to independently obtain or verify the text messages, and Aviles’s lawyer, Bobby Barrera, said he would leave it to Gonzales or Aviles to release them.
“When he took the phone and began to scroll, she allegedly told him, ‘You’re not going to see what you like or what you find,’” Barrera said in an interview. Aviles’s account was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News.
Barrera said she was subsequently ostracized within Gonzales’s office and had experienced depression before her suicide.
The allegations could affect his tense primary fight against Brandon Herrera, who owns a firearm manufacturer and runs a popular YouTube channel calling himself “the AK Guy.” Herrera narrowly lost to Gonzales in a primary runoff in 2024.
Gonzales suggested on social media and in statements this week that Herrera was behind news reports about the affair — and that Barrera, the lawyer, was blackmailing him.
“I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED. Disgusting to see people profit politically and financially off a tragic death,” he wrote Thursday on X. His post included a screenshot of an email with Barrera’s signature that appeared to show the attorney seeking a settlement.
Barrera confirmed the email was sent by him to Gonzales’s lawyer, San Antonio attorney JD Pauerstein, but denied that it amounted to blackmail. “It’s not blackmail when you offer to settle a significantly damaging lawsuit confidentially,” he said. “It’s not blackmail to pursue legal rights in court. It’s not blackmail to tell the truth.”
Gonzales, a Navy veteran first elected in 2020, received an endorsement from President Donald Trump in his bid for a fourth term. But he has drawn flak from the GOP’s right flank for bucking his party at times, including on a bipartisan gun-control bill in 2022 following the deadly Uvalde school shooting in his district.
Herrera, who has pitched himself as a more conservative voice for Texas’s 23rd Congressional District, accused the congressman of violating House ethics rules and voters’ trust, and using taxpayer money “to fund the affair.” He did not specify how Gonzales could have used public funds or offer evidence to support that allegation.
“Similar behavior in our military would lead to court-martial and dismissal from service,” Herrera said in a statement. “We should not hold the political leaders who oversee our armed services to a lower standard than the one to which our fighting men and women are held.”
Gonzales in November denied the relationship during an interview at the Texas Tribune Festival in which he said Santos-Aviles should be remembered for her work serving the community.
In a Wednesday report in the Express-News, an unnamed former aide to Gonzales who worked alongside Santos-Aviles shared screenshots of text messages in which she had purportedly admitted to a relationship with the congressman. “I had affair with our boss and I’m fine,” Santos-Aviles allegedly texted the aide on April 27.
The Post was unable to independently confirm that report.
Barrera, the lawyer for Santos-Aviles’s husband, said Aviles never wanted to make anything public but decided to speak out following the report because Gonzales had been smearing his wife.
“Tony just kept denying it as a political hack job by his opponent,” Barrera said of the congressman. “Tony wasn’t accepting responsibility and was basically calling his wife a liar — and calling him a liar.”
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