{"id":19618,"date":"2026-03-05T01:02:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:02:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/tony-gonzales-admits-sexual-relationship-with-former-staff-member-who-killed-herself\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T01:02:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T01:02:32","slug":"tony-gonzales-admits-sexual-relationship-with-former-staff-member-who-killed-herself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/tony-gonzales-admits-sexual-relationship-with-former-staff-member-who-killed-herself\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Gonzales admits sexual relationship with former staff member who killed herself"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales has admitted for the first time that he had a sexual relationship with his former staff member who killed herself last year.<\/p>\n

Gonzales, who faces a May runoff in the Republican primary to hold his seat, insisted in a radio interview that he is not responsible for her death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a mistake, and I had a lapse in judgment, and there was a lack of faith, and I take full responsibility for those actions,\u201d Gonzales told radio host Joe Pagliarulo<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gonzales, who is married, made the comments hours after congressional investigators recommended<\/u><\/a> the House Ethics committee probe the lawmaker for the relationship, which would be a violation of House rules. The Texas lawmaker said he plans to cooperate with the committee\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n

The acknowledgment comes a day after Gonzales was forced into a runoff election<\/u><\/a> in his west Texas congressional seat against Brandon Herrera, a media personality who owns a gun business and calls himself \u201cthe AK Guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Several of his Republican colleagues have called for Gonzales to step down<\/u><\/a> after new details about the relationship came to light in the weeks before Tuesday\u2019s election. Gonzales had previously denied the affair and refused to resign.<\/p>\n

Gonzales is alleged to have tried to coerce Regina Santos-Aviles into sending explicit photos, according to text messages published by the San Antonio Express-News<\/a> and other publications. Blue Light News has not independently reviewed the messages.<\/p>\n

An attorney for Gonzales declined to comment.<\/p>\n

In the interview, Gonzales spoke about Santos-Aviles\u2019 time working in his office before her death, which he said came as \u201ca shock to everyone.\u201d She died by suicide after setting herself on fire at her home in 2025 \u2013 about a year after the exchange of messages with the lawmaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the reports are saying that she was not thriving at work. It’s exact opposite. She was thriving at work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Gonzales said that Santos-Aviles\u2019 suicide had \u201cabsolutely nothing to do with\u201d their relationship.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales has admitted for the first time that he had a sexual relationship with his former staff member who killed herself last year. Gonzales, who faces a May runoff in the Republican primary to hold his seat, insisted in a radio interview that he is not responsible for her death. \u201cI made […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19618\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}