Newly-released text messages appear to show the congressman repeatedly pressuring a former aide, who later died by suicide.
By February 24, 2026 1:56 pmGovernment & Politics, Texas Standard Original
US House of Representatives/House Creative Services as shown by https://gonzales.house.gov/about, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales
There are growing calls for U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales to step down and abandon his re-election campaign.
New details have emerged about his relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide. This week, text messages obtained by the San Antonio Express-News show Gonzales repeatedly pressuring the young woman to send him inappropriate pictures and to meet with in person.
So far, Gonzales has not indicated that he will leave office or end his campaign.
Nancy Preyor-Johnson and Bayliss Wagner, Express-News reporters who have been covering the scandal, joined Texas Standard with a breakdown of the story. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Well, Nancy, let’s take a step back. Regina Santos-Aviles, the woman who worked for Gonzales, died by suicide last September. Was it known at the time she had a relationship with the congressman?
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: Not right away. There were rumors, but we definitely waited to make sure that we could report it out.
The whole time that this has happened since she died, we made sure not to report on rumors but to make sure that we had validated information that we can report.
How did this affair come to light, or do we call it an “affair”? This “relationship” come to life?
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: I think it’s pretty fair to call it an affair at this point. My colleague and I have uncovered these text messages and we’ve had interviews with a staffer. Bayless, if you wanna talk about that, that was actually the first way that we were able to report about this.
Bayliss Wagner: How this came to light is that a staffer who had been working at Rep. Gonzales’ Uvalde district office alongside Regina Santos-Aviles came forward earlier this month and shared a text message in which the late staffer said “I had an affair with our boss.” And so that was the first documentary evidence.
Once we got that, Nancy was able to talk with the lawyer of Santos-Aviles’ husband and get more confirmation that, yes, this was a relationship that he knew about and that staff knew about that was sort of widely known, it was an open secret. And that seemed to sort of break the dam where now we’re uncovering kind of other evidence about this.
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: Yes, the more we report, the more questions we have and the more information we’ve been able to uncover. The text messages are pretty damning. It is very clear that the congressman initiated these conversations and the relationship and that Regina was very hesitant and she wasn’t as interested, right? And she was feeling pressured.
I mean, you can gather so much from the text messages that we were able to report about. We were very clear at saying that what we received was an excerpt, right? It was a sample.
And it was based on one night and it was May 9 of 2024. Gonzalez texts, “send me a sexy pic.” You know, she starts hesitating and just saying, well, “I don’t like to send photos.” You know, “I don’t like to take pictures of myself.” And he just keeps on and keeps on. He starts asking her for her favorite positions. And you know, it just goes on from there and it’s pretty explicit.
And, you know, what’s really important to note here is that this is not everything. The text messages that were released were the ones that were not as graphic. It is very, very important to Regina’s husband that the most graphic text messages are not public.
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Well, tell us about that for those who don’t know. She was married and Gonzales is married, too. What has he had to say about all this? Either of you can respond.
Bayliss Wagner: So Gonzales has actually repeatedly declined to answer questions and he hasn’t ever said the words “I did not have an affair.” He hasn’t every said the words “I did not have a relationship with this woman.”
What he said back in November was when asked about the rumors surrounding her death, he said all the rumors are completely false. Even when I went up to him and asked him which rumors, he said all of them. So he’s refused to address them specifically.
And then more recently, now that evidence has emerged, he’s called them personal smears. He’s blamed his primary opponent in the Republican primary, Brandon Herrera. And he said that people are trying to profit politically and financially off of a tragic death. He’s also accused Adrian Aviles, Regina’s husband, of trying to blackmail him and posted discussions relating to an NDA.
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: That’s a very good point. When he did that, when Tony did that on X, and put that post saying that Adrian was trying to blackmail him, that is what actually spurred Adrian to give more information up, like to share those text messages.
You know, because he was very hesitant. He said he does not want his eight-year-old son, he doesn’t want him reading this stuff. He doesn’t his friends reading this, you know? And then he said, oh no, I have to prove it. I have prove it.
Well, Bayliss, we noted that calls for Gonzales to step down are growing. Who’s spoken up and what have the Texas lawmakers had to say about all this?
Bayliss Wagner: Yeah, it’s a good question because mainly the people that have called for Gonzales to step down or exit the race are the far, like the rightmost wing of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill.
And so, so far the only Texas congressman who has called for him to resign is Brandon Gill. He’s in North Texas and he’s part of the House Freedom Caucus, which has always really opposed Gonzales.
Gonzales is considered a somewhat moderate Republican and he has made enemies that way. Three Republican women — so that would be Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — all criticized Gonzales, calling this behavior disgusting, disturbing, dishonorable… They didn’t all make the same call, but called for them either to resign or step down.
People have been asking House Speaker Mike Johnson about his endorsement. Speaker Johnson has said that he’s waiting for the investigation in the House Ethics Committee to play out.
Well, let’s talk about that. There is a House Ethics Committee investigating the matter, but it won’t have findings before the primaries next week. So what are you expecting?
Bayliss Wagner: Not only will it not have findings before the primary, what’s been reported is that the Office of Congressional Conduct has prepared a report and they will pass that to the committee after the primary.
I’ve been asking around and they say that rules prevent them from sharing those reports publicly. That doesn’t mean that some enterprising journalists can’t uncover it, potentially.
Yeah, we have no idea. Thank you, Bayliss. And Nancy, let’s let you close this out. What what can we expect next?
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: Well, we are still talking to the family and we’re still just trying to uncover as much as we can about the relationship and just trying to talk with other people who have worked with Tony Gonzales as well and just see, are there any patterns here? It’s important to uncover as much as we can.
I think Adrian, who’s Regina’s husband at the very beginning of all of this, when I was trying to get him to talk with me right after his wife died — this horrific death, right — he said the truth will come to light.
And that is what’s guided, right? That’s what guides all journalists, is just uncovering what happened and laying it out there so that people can decide for themselves what they would like to do.
If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.
US House of Representatives/House Creative Services as shown by https://gonzales.house.gov/about, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales
There are growing calls for U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales to step down and abandon his re-election campaign.
New details have emerged about his relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide. This week, text messages obtained by the San Antonio Express-News show Gonzales repeatedly pressuring the young woman to send him inappropriate pictures and to meet with in person.
So far, Gonzales has not indicated that he will leave office or end his campaign.
Nancy Preyor-Johnson and Bayliss Wagner, Express-News reporters who have been covering the scandal, joined Texas Standard with a breakdown of the story. Listen to the interview in the player above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Well, Nancy, let’s take a step back. Regina Santos-Aviles, the woman who worked for Gonzales, died by suicide last September. Was it known at the time she had a relationship with the congressman?
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: Not right away. There were rumors, but we definitely waited to make sure that we could report it out.
The whole time that this has happened since she died, we made sure not to report on rumors but to make sure that we had validated information that we can report.
How did this affair come to light, or do we call it an “affair”? This “relationship” come to life?
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: I think it’s pretty fair to call it an affair at this point. My colleague and I have uncovered these text messages and we’ve had interviews with a staffer. Bayless, if you wanna talk about that, that was actually the first way that we were able to report about this.
Bayliss Wagner: How this came to light is that a staffer who had been working at Rep. Gonzales’ Uvalde district office alongside Regina Santos-Aviles came forward earlier this month and shared a text message in which the late staffer said “I had an affair with our boss.” And so that was the first documentary evidence.
Once we got that, Nancy was able to talk with the lawyer of Santos-Aviles’ husband and get more confirmation that, yes, this was a relationship that he knew about and that staff knew about that was sort of widely known, it was an open secret. And that seemed to sort of break the dam where now we’re uncovering kind of other evidence about this.
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: Yes, the more we report, the more questions we have and the more information we’ve been able to uncover. The text messages are pretty damning. It is very clear that the congressman initiated these conversations and the relationship and that Regina was very hesitant and she wasn’t as interested, right? And she was feeling pressured.
I mean, you can gather so much from the text messages that we were able to report about. We were very clear at saying that what we received was an excerpt, right? It was a sample.
And it was based on one night and it was May 9 of 2024. Gonzalez texts, “send me a sexy pic.” You know, she starts hesitating and just saying, well, “I don’t like to send photos.” You know, “I don’t like to take pictures of myself.” And he just keeps on and keeps on. He starts asking her for her favorite positions. And you know, it just goes on from there and it’s pretty explicit.
And, you know, what’s really important to note here is that this is not everything. The text messages that were released were the ones that were not as graphic. It is very, very important to Regina’s husband that the most graphic text messages are not public.
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
Well, tell us about that for those who don’t know. She was married and Gonzales is married, too. What has he had to say about all this? Either of you can respond.
Bayliss Wagner: So Gonzales has actually repeatedly declined to answer questions and he hasn’t ever said the words “I did not have an affair.” He hasn’t every said the words “I did not have a relationship with this woman.”
What he said back in November was when asked about the rumors surrounding her death, he said all the rumors are completely false. Even when I went up to him and asked him which rumors, he said all of them. So he’s refused to address them specifically.
And then more recently, now that evidence has emerged, he’s called them personal smears. He’s blamed his primary opponent in the Republican primary, Brandon Herrera. And he said that people are trying to profit politically and financially off of a tragic death. He’s also accused Adrian Aviles, Regina’s husband, of trying to blackmail him and posted discussions relating to an NDA.
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: That’s a very good point. When he did that, when Tony did that on X, and put that post saying that Adrian was trying to blackmail him, that is what actually spurred Adrian to give more information up, like to share those text messages.
You know, because he was very hesitant. He said he does not want his eight-year-old son, he doesn’t want him reading this stuff. He doesn’t his friends reading this, you know? And then he said, oh no, I have to prove it. I have prove it.
Well, Bayliss, we noted that calls for Gonzales to step down are growing. Who’s spoken up and what have the Texas lawmakers had to say about all this?
Bayliss Wagner: Yeah, it’s a good question because mainly the people that have called for Gonzales to step down or exit the race are the far, like the rightmost wing of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill.
And so, so far the only Texas congressman who has called for him to resign is Brandon Gill. He’s in North Texas and he’s part of the House Freedom Caucus, which has always really opposed Gonzales.
Gonzales is considered a somewhat moderate Republican and he has made enemies that way. Three Republican women — so that would be Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — all criticized Gonzales, calling this behavior disgusting, disturbing, dishonorable… They didn’t all make the same call, but called for them either to resign or step down.
People have been asking House Speaker Mike Johnson about his endorsement. Speaker Johnson has said that he’s waiting for the investigation in the House Ethics Committee to play out.
Well, let’s talk about that. There is a House Ethics Committee investigating the matter, but it won’t have findings before the primaries next week. So what are you expecting?
Bayliss Wagner: Not only will it not have findings before the primary, what’s been reported is that the Office of Congressional Conduct has prepared a report and they will pass that to the committee after the primary.
I’ve been asking around and they say that rules prevent them from sharing those reports publicly. That doesn’t mean that some enterprising journalists can’t uncover it, potentially.
Yeah, we have no idea. Thank you, Bayliss. And Nancy, let’s let you close this out. What what can we expect next?
Nancy Preyor-Johnson: Well, we are still talking to the family and we’re still just trying to uncover as much as we can about the relationship and just trying to talk with other people who have worked with Tony Gonzales as well and just see, are there any patterns here? It’s important to uncover as much as we can.
I think Adrian, who’s Regina’s husband at the very beginning of all of this, when I was trying to get him to talk with me right after his wife died — this horrific death, right — he said the truth will come to light.
And that is what’s guided, right? That’s what guides all journalists, is just uncovering what happened and laying it out there so that people can decide for themselves what they would like to do.
If you found the reporting above valuable, please consider making a donation to support it here. Your gift helps pay for everything you find on texasstandard.org and KUT.org. Thanks for donating today.
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