{"id":191765,"date":"2026-03-05T14:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/191765\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T14:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T14:11:10","slug":"tony-gonzales-admits-to-affair-with-former-staffer-who-committed-suicide-arguing-its-about-money-and-political-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/191765\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Gonzales Admits to Affair with Former Staffer Who Committed Suicide, Arguing \u201cIt\u2019s About Money and Political Power\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A <\/p>\n

SAN ANTONIO, Tx., March 5, 2026: In an update to a story<\/a>, we first brought to you back on September 18, 2025, we have now learned that Tony Gonzales (R-TX-23) has admitted to having an affair with his former staffer, Regina Santos-Aviles.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Santos-Aviles died on September 14, 2025, by suicide<\/a> after dousing herself with gasoline and lighting herself on fire.<\/p>\n

Rumors circulated after her death that she was having an affair with Gonzales. However, Gonzales denied the affair until yesterday.<\/p>\n

Gonzales went on the Joe Pags radio talk show<\/a> yesterday where he admitted to the affair. The show\u2019s host is Joseph Pagliarulo. When asked by Pagliarulo if he had the affair, Gonzales replied that \u201cvery direct, I made a mistake.\u201d He added that \u201cI had a lapse of judgement, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that since then he had reconciled with his wife and that he asked, \u201cGod to forgive\u201d him, adding, \u201cwhich he has.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gonzales said that \u201cthere is a lot more to the story, that isn\u2019t out there.\u201d Gonzales added that contrary to the narrative, Santos-Aviles \u201cwas thriving at work,\u201d and that her suicide was \u201ca shock\u201d to everyone.<\/p>\n

Gonzales argued that the story behind the affair and suicide is \u201cabout money.\u201d He told Pagliarulo that \u201cwithin hours\u201d of her death, \u201cher estranged husband reached out to our office to inquire\u201d about Santos-Aviles\u2019 \u201cdeath benefits, and how he could access them.\u201d He says that the husband\u2019s call is \u201cthe beginning\u201d of what he described as \u201cabout money.\u201d Gonzales adds that months later the husband\u2019s \u201ccriminal attorney reached out\u201d and \u201cessentially asked me for money, or else.\u201d Gonzales argued that it was strange to him that a criminal attorney would reach out to him, instead of a civil attorney.<\/p>\n

Gonzales went on to say that the attorney asked for $300,000, adding that he does not have the money, and that if he had the money, he would not give it \u201cto someone that is trying to shake me down.\u201d He added that \u201cthis has always been about money.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to argue that the scandal surrounding him was the result of a \u201ccoordinated effort\u201d that led to the release of text messages before the start of early voting, suggesting that the release of the text messages was about pressuring him to pay money to the estranged husband.<\/p>\n

He added that he hadn\u2019t spoken to Santos-Aviles since June of 2024, over a year before she committed suicide. Gonzales says he \u201chad nothing to do with her\u201d death.<\/p>\n

Gonzales admitted to reaching out to Pagliarulo to come on his show because he says the news media was complicit in what he argues is a coordinated effort to force him out of office. Gonzales says that he went on Pagliarulo\u2019s show because it offered an \u201calternative way of getting real information out.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to explain that part of the coordinated effort against him was to get him \u201cto not vote on the DHS package\u201d scheduled for a vote later today. The federal government has been in a partial shutdown<\/a> since February 1 with funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) lapsed as Democrats have three demands to refund the department.<\/p>\n

The Democrats are demanding a reform package for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents while conducting immigration enforcement actions across America. The three demands are the removal of face masks, the use of judicial warrants instead of administrative warrants and a code of conduct of the agents.<\/p>\n

Gonzales says that the Uvalde police report states that the \u201cfemale subject with burn injuries then stated her husband is gay and having an affair with her best friend.\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggests that the sentence in the report may have had something to do with her suicide. Gonzales says that the statements that Santos-Aviles made to the first respondents show that he had \u201cnothing to do\u201d with her suicide.<\/p>\n

He told Pagliarulo that the pay raise she received in 2024 was part of a \u201cstaff wide\u201d pay raise for his staff.<\/p>\n

Pagliarulo asked Gonzales, \u201ccan you survive this,\u201d in reference to the runoff he faces against Brandon Herrera. Herrera outperformed Gonzales by 878 votes in a four-way race in Tuesday\u2019s primary. Herrera lost by 400 votes in the 2024 runoff against the incumbent. Gonzales responded that he can still be effective in office, even though some Republican members have said he should resign. Gonzales told Pagliarulo that those who \u201care asking me not to do my job [resign], are the ones that want to see the Republicans fail here in Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have both endorsed Gonzales. The House Ethics Committee voted yesterday to investigate Gonzales for \u201csexual misconduct\u201d involving his subordinate.<\/p>\n

Gonzales argues that \u201cI am the only one that can hold\u201d the district, suggesting that if he were to resign, the Republicans would lose the \u201cslim majority\u201d they hold at the House. He went on to argue that if he is forced out of the House, the Democrats could take control of it in November, which will lead to efforts to impeach Donald Trump \u201cat every single moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

He reiterated to Pagliarulo that the scandal is \u201cabout money\u201d and \u201cpolitical power,\u201d adding that the scandal \u201cwas a very coordinated attack.\u201d Gonzales closed by stating that he will win the runoff scheduled for May 26.<\/p>\n

Like Us and Follow Us On Our Social Media!<\/p>\n

Visited 20 times, 20 visit(s) today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO, Tx., March 5, 2026: In an update to a story, we first brought to you back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[27900,58531,145,138,140,139,17838,6681,11579,2566],"class_list":["post-191765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-brandon-herrera","tag-department-of-homeland-security-dhs","tag-donald-trump","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-ice","tag-mike-johnson","tag-regina-santos-aviles","tag-tony-gonzales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191765","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=191765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}