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by Eleanor Klibanoff, The Texas Tribune
February 23, 2026
Just after midnight on May 9, 2024, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales begged an employee, Regina Santos-Aviles, to send him a “sexy pic.” When she pushed back, saying the conversation had gone too far, the married San Antonio Republican persisted, saying he was “just such a visual person.”
Santos-Aviles, Gonzales’ district director in Uvalde, died in September 2025 after lighting herself on fire. Her husband, Adrian Aviles, shared these text messages with The Texas Tribune on Monday as evidence of an affair between the congressman and his staffer. Aviles told the San Antonio Express-News, which published the text messages first, that the relationship and the professional ostracization his wife faced after it was discovered led her to become despondent before her death.
Gonzales did not respond to a request for comment. He said in November that rumors of an affair between him and Santos-Aviles were “completely untruthful.” But as more evidence has emerged over the last week, he has sidestepped direct denials, instead accusing Aviles of trying to blackmail him and blaming his opponent in next week’s primary, Brandon Herrera, for politicizing the issue.
Gonzales has also called for the full police report related to Santos-Aviles’ death to be released; Uvalde officials provided the report to The Texas Tribune on Monday.
According to the report, Santos-Aviles told responding officers that she set herself on fire because her husband was romantically involved with her best friend. The couple had been estranged for several months, after “Regina’s supposed affair” strained the relationship, a friend told the detective investigating her death.
Santos-Aviles died the next day at a hospital in San Antonio. She and Aviles shared an 8-year-old son.
Gonzales is married with six children, and represents the 23rd Congressional District, the state’s largest, which stretches across the southwestern border and into San Antonio. He is facing a tough reelection bid, as Herrera, a gun rights activist and YouTuber, takes another swing at the seat after almost unseating Gonzales in 2024.
In ads and on social media, Herrera has hammered Gonzales for having a “taxpayer funded affair with a married staffer, which led to her death by self-immolation,” as he put it in one post. Herrera has also said Gonzales should step down and rebuffed the congressman’s claims that he is using Santos-Aviles’ death to score political points.
“Calling for your resignation over something you objectively did (and then lied about on camera to cover up) isn’t a ‘political attack,’” Herrera tweeted. “It’s called accountability.”
‘Going too far boss’
The text messages indicate Gonzales pushed a sexual relationship with Santos-Aviles despite House rules, passed in 2018, prohibiting relationships between lawmakers and their staff.
The messages, sent weeks ahead of Gonzales’ runoff election against Herrera in May 2024, show the congressman repeatedly pushing the conversation in a sexual direction, even as Santos-Aviles tried to deter him. After requesting an explicit photo, which she declined to provide, he asked her “favorite position.” She asked for his first, and he said, “on top pinning your legs.”
“This is going too far boss,” she replied. He continued to push, but eventually, the conversation turned to setting up an in-person liaison. Two days later, the pair were alone for several hours at a cabin owned by a former staffer’s family, the staffer told the Express-News.
Just a few weeks later, Aviles discovered the affair between his wife and her boss. He used her phone to send a group text to Gonzales and seven members of his staff, identifying himself as Santos-Aviles’ “soon to be ex husband” and announcing the affair.
Gonzales and the rest of the staff then began to ostracize her to try to get her to quit, Aviles told the newspaper. A former staffer confirmed there was a shift in how she was treated.
Aviles and his wife separated after the affair came to light, and according to interviews documented by law enforcement, things began to spiral for Santos-Aviles. She was struggling with alcohol and threatened self-harm, including an incident where she called Aviles while pointing a gun at her head.
In mid-September, five months after the affair came to light, Santos-Aviles told some family friends she was “pretty sad about the situation and was saying she wanted her family back,” the friend, identified as Victor Baron, told police.
The next night, Santos-Aviles texted a friend, alleging that Aviles was romantically involved with her best friend and expressing that she was upset. She then doused herself in gasoline and sent a video of the act to her friend, asking him to tell Aviles to “have fun raising our son.”
Soon after, Santos-Aviles called 911. According to a police officer who listened to the recording, she could be heard yelling, “Please send help, it burns so bad,” and “My God, I don’t want to die.” Two minutes later, another female voice can be heard — Santos-Aviles’ mother, who found her at the scene.
She was transported to Brooke Army Medical Center, where she died the next day.
Rumors quickly began to swirl about a relationship between Santos-Aviles and Gonzales, and whether there was any connection to her death. Last week, just as early voting was starting for the March 3 primary, the Express-News published a text message between Santos-Aviles and a former staffer, in which she said she’d had an affair with Gonzales.
Several lawmakers condemned Gonzales after the text messages were reported. Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Flower Mound, called for him to drop his reelection bid, and Rep. Chip Roy, an Austin Republican who supported Herrera in 2024, voiced renewed support for him in next week’s rematch.
“Brandon should have been elected last cycle, and he should be elected this cycle,” Roy said on social media. “We need conservative warriors in Congress representing the values of Texans. The stakes are too high.”
U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, called on Gonzales to resign, and GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida called on Gonzales’ colleagues from Texas to speak out.
“The entire Texas delegation, as well as every single other Member of Congress, should be condemning a sitting Member of Congress asking for explicit photos of their staff,” Luna said in a social media post. “As a woman, this is really disgusting to see. Not to mention, it brings dishonor on the House of Representatives.”
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Eleanor Klibanoff is the law and politics reporter, based in Austin, where she covers the the Texas Legislature, the Office of the Attorney General, state and federal courts and politics writ large. She… More by Eleanor Klibanoff