Republican Congressman Tony Gonzales from Texas had an affair with a female staffer in 2024, who immolated herself to death over a year later in September of last year.
Now, new texts have come to light that show some very unethical and immoral conversations Gonzales had with his staffer, Regina Ann Santos-Aviles.
Gonzales is a married father of six, according to the report.
Here’s more from Express News:
In the spring of 2024, U.S. Rep. Tony Gonzales was in the midst of a bruising primary campaign, fighting to hang onto his congressional seat. But politics was not on his mind when he began trading text messages with a staff member at 12:15 a.m. on May 9.
“Send me a sexy pic,” he texted Regina Ann Santos-Aviles, then director of his regional district office in Uvalde, according to messages obtained by the San Antonio Express-News.
Santos-Aviles replied that she’d had a rough week and “you don’t really want a hot picture of me.”
“Yes I do,” Gonzales texted, adding, “Hurry.”
“No, I just don’t like taking pictures of myself,” Santos-Aviles responded a few minutes later.
Gonzales persisted: “I’m just such a visual person.”
The congressman went on to ask Santos-Aviles about her favorite sexual positions and to fantasize about having sex with her. Twice, she told Gonzales he was going “too far.” But at his urging, the two made plans to meet up two days later, when he would be campaigning in the Uvalde area.
“Will be lots of fun,” Gonzales texted, adding that they should rendezvous at the agreed-on place “at check-in time.”
The third-term Republican congressman, a married father of six, pursued a romantic relationship with Santos-Aviles despite U.S. House ethics rules that bar lawmakers from engaging in sexual liaisons with staff members, the message chain shows. Santos-Aviles, 35, killed herself in September by setting herself on fire. She was married and the mother of an 8-year-old boy.
Adrian Aviles, her widower, provided the May 2024 texts to the Express-News, which authenticated them.
A separate set of texts from a different source show that on two occasions that same month, Gonzales and Santos-Aviles arranged to spend time together in a vacation cabin in the Hill Country owned by the family of a Gonzales staff member. The cabin is in Concan, a resort town along the Frio River 25 miles northeast of Uvalde.
Gonzales did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
News reports on the affair between Gonzales and Santos-Aviles have roiled this year’s Republican primary in Texas’ 23d Congressional District. Gonzales, 45, faces, among other challengers, Brandon Herrera, a firearms manufacturer and YouTube personality who nearly unseated him in 2024.
In response to the furor, Gonzales has accused Aviles of trying to “blackmail” him. Aviles’ lawyer, Robert “Bobby” Barrera of San Antonio, acknowledges that he tried for months without success to negotiate a confidential settlement with the congressman over the affair and Santos-Aviles’ death.
The string of newly obtained texts from 2024 were extracted from Santos-Aviles’ smartphone by a digital forensics firm.
Barrera said he paid Exhibit A Computer Forensics to retrieve the data in anticipation of using it in civil litigation against Gonzales. The San Antonio-based company employs advanced software to capture the contents of electronic communications, along with phone numbers and timestamps. Its clients include law firms and law enforcement agencies.
Aviles shared with the Express-News 34 texts sent between 12:15 a.m. and 1:09 a.m. Central Standard Time on May 9, 2024. He said he had withheld other texts because they were even more graphic and he did not want his son to see them.
Barrera described the unreleased texts “as sexually grotesque.”
Dana Loesch says President Trump needs to withdraw his endorsement ASAP. Can’t say I disagree.
Trump needs to withdraw his endorsement of Gonzales ASAP. https://t.co/D8ZJSFy3yF
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) February 23, 2026