{"id":169841,"date":"2026-02-18T15:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/169841\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T15:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T15:16:10","slug":"update-tony-gonzales-was-having-affair-with-staffer-who-committed-suicide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/169841\/","title":{"rendered":"Update: Tony Gonzales Was Having Affair with Staffer Who Committed Suicide"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ephp_4-1-980x551.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"A picture of Regina Santos-Aviles and Tony Gonzales\" decoding=\"async\"  \/>  <\/p>\n<p>AUSTIN, Tx., February 18, 2026: In an <a href=\"https:\/\/elpasoheraldpost.com\/2025\/11\/14\/regina-santos-aviles-update-suicide-ruling-and-tony-gonzales-addresses-rumors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">update<\/a> to a story we brought you back in November, former staffer for Tony Gonzales (R-23) who died of self-immolation after she set herself on fire had been involved in an affair with the Texas congressman before committing suicide, according to a former staffer at the congressman\u2019s office. Gonzales represents part of El Paso.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/civispulse.com\/pulse.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"970\" height=\"250\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/civis_polls_1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-895\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>San Antonio Express News, which has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.expressnews.com\/news\/article\/tony-gonzales-affair-regina-santos-aviles-21357720.php\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">closely following the events<\/a> around this story since Regina Santos-Aviles committed suicide on September 14, 2025, reported yesterday that a former staffer in Gonzales\u2019 office shared text messages showing that Gonzales and Santos-Aviles had been involved in a romantic relationship since 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Both were married at the time.<\/p>\n<p>At the time of her death, Gonzales denied having an affair with Santos-Aviles stating that the \u201crumor [about the affair] are completely untrue.\u201d Rumors about an affair began circulating shortly after her death.<\/p>\n<p>Gonzales is being challenged by three candidates in the upcoming Republican primaries. They are Keith Barton, Francisco \u201cQuico\u201d Canesco and Brandon Herrera. Herrera has been polling well against Gonzales heading into the March 3 primary. Voters <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/newsletters\/weekly-score\/2026\/02\/17\/where-democrats-house-primaries-stand-00783331\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">polled<\/a> by Political Intelligence shows Herrera leading the race with 33% to Gonzales\u2019 29%.<\/p>\n<p>On January 27, a lawyer for the Trump campaign sent a cease-and-desist letter to Herrera telling him to cease \u201cthe unauthorized and deceptive use\u201d of Trump\u2019s \u201cimage and likeness\u201d for campaign fundraising. According to the letter, Herrera sent a political mailer that \u201cgives voters the false impression\u201d that Trump endorsed Herrera. The letter points out that Trump endorsed Gonzales on December 8, 2025.<\/p>\n<p>No word yet what impact, if any, this latest development will have on Gonzales\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n<p>The unnamed former staffer told the San Antonio Express News that Santos-Aviles \u201cspiraled into a depression\u201d after her husband discovered the affair.<\/p>\n<p>Santos-Aviles leaves behind an 8-year-old boy, and the child\u2019s father.<\/p>\n<p>Like Us and Follow Us On Our Social Media!<\/p>\n<p>Visited 220 times, 220 visit(s) today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Tx., February 18, 2026: In an update to a story we brought you back in November, former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[27900,145,138,140,139,68693,68694,11579,2566],"class_list":{"0":"post-169841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-el-paso","8":"tag-brandon-herrera","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-el-paso","11":"tag-el-paso-headlines","12":"tag-el-paso-news","13":"tag-francisco-quico-canesco","14":"tag-keith-barton","15":"tag-regina-santos-aviles","16":"tag-tony-gonzales"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}