A former employee of Rep. Tony Gonzalez (R-Texas) has reportedly revealed an affair with him prior to her tragic suicide last year.
An anonymous ex-employee from Gonzalez’s district office indicated to The San Antonio Express that Regina Ann Santos Aviles, 35, admitted to the affair in 2024. Santos Aviles, who served as Gonzalez’s regional director, passed away in September 2025 after a horrific incident involving gasoline and flames.
The newspaper reported that a former staff member, who wished to remain anonymous, stated that Santos Aviles, a mother to an eight-year-old boy, fell into a deep depression after her husband found out about the affair and Gonzalez abruptly ended their relationship.
According to the same source, the romance between Gonzalez and Santos Aviles became known to some members of the staff during the 2024 campaign. When Adrian Aviles, Santos’s husband, discovered the affair, he subsequently emailed Gonzalez’s legislative team to report the situation.
Insiders noted that the affair was acknowledged by some officials during the primary campaign. It was said that during the campaign, Gonzalez stayed at a vacation rental belonging to a former employee’s family near Uvalde, and there were instances in May 2024 when he and Santos Aviles spent time there together for an hour or two.
Two weeks later, Santos Aviles called to inform her colleagues that her husband had found incriminating text messages. She reached out, distressed and in tears, disclosing that she had been unfaithful. This call took place on May 29, the day following Gonzalez’s narrow victory over Brandon Herrera in the Republican primary runoff. It was then that Aviles texted Gonzalez’s staff requesting them to reveal the relationship.
Following Aviles’s messages to the staff about this incident, the Texas congressman and his district director, Jalen Falcon, decided to cancel meetings with local groups that had been organized by Santos Aviles and the former employee, according to the former staff member.
The staff also did not accompany Gonzalez on a later visit to Uvalde. The source claimed that Santos Aviles’s distress grew significantly leading up to her death.
“She mentioned Tony every day,” a former colleague remarked. “She went from being a top employee to feeling completely lost.”
The same former employee provided a text message exchange from April 27, 2025, where Santos Aviles stated, “I had an affair with my boss (sic) but I’m okay. You’re okay.”
Another individual disclosed that just a month before her death, Santos Aviles had attempted suicide, which led to police being called to her residence.
Adrian Aviles, who had been with Santos Aviles for 21 years and married to her for seven, reflected on the seasons people go through in relationships, noting that “no matter how complicated it is, love never ends.”
In an earlier report, it was mentioned that various sources had corroborated allegations of extramarital affairs connected to reporters. Santos Aviles’s family has also claimed that she did not deliberately cause the fire.
