WASHINGTON — A Texas Republican and his alleged mistress aide exchanged 3,500 texts, some of which were “sexual,” her heartbroken husband and his attorney revealed to The Post in interviews Thursday, as the widower insisted his late wife cried out she “didn’t want to die” after fatally setting herself on fire last year.
Adrian Aviles‘ wife Regina Santos-Aviles worked for Rep. Tony Gonzales until her death by self-immolation in September 2025 — more than a year after purported trysts with the congressman were exposed when her husband saw “sexual” messages between the two on her cell phone.
Gonzales, who did not respond to requests for comment, in a blistering post on X Thursday in turn accused Aviles and his attorney Bobby Barrerra of apparently seeking to “blackmail” him if he didn’t pay six-figures in damages related to Regina’s fiery death.
“I found out about this on May 31st of 2024,” Adrian said, remembering how his spouse initially held her phone back from him by saying, “You’re not gonna like what you see.”
“I left the house with the phone and looked at them and read every message,” he recalled, mentioning some were sexually suggestive.
Barrera noted that the communications “clearly indicate something more than a non-professional relationship” between the married father of six and his staffer — but “nothing graphic.”
“But the context is sexual in nature,” Barrerra added, “where she’s asking her to send him pictures of herself when she is at a motel. And so the clear implication of that is that he wanted nudey pics.”
The communications are currently being downloaded by a forensics team, Aviles and his lawyer noted, with both promising to release their contents to the public imminently.
“He lives his life as if nothing happened. He has no remorse. His office never reached out to us and given us any kind of condolences. His wife never sent — they never sent flowers,” Aviles added, noting that Gonzales wasn’t welcome at his late spouse’s funeral.
Aviles and a former Gonzales staffer affirmed that the dalliance had lasted no more than a month — but the husband stressed that his wife didn’t take her own life because she was pregnant or had a history of mental instability.
“Regina was not pregnant,” he affirmed. “She was a completely stable … mentally-sane person before all of this.”
Santos-Aviles husband said he confronted Gonzales about the apparent fling after reading the texts.
“Tony knew I knew — because I told him,” Adrian said, characterizing the Texas pol’s reaction was “nonchalant” and claiming Gonzales only told him: “‘Take care of your family.’”
Barrera has been privately seeking an up to $300,000 settlement with Gonzales’ office under the Congressional Accountability Act for alleged sexual harassment of Santos-Aviles as well as workplace retaliation.
The GOP lawmaker on Thursday posted a screenshot of an email from Barrera discussing the terms of that settlement on Thursday and erupted, “I WILL NOT BE BLACKMAILED. Disgusting to see people profit politically and financially off a tragic death. The public should IMMEDIATELY have full access to the Uvalde Police report.”
“Tony left out the part that he didn’t want people to read,” Barrera said of the email. “We downloaded Regina’s phone and it is replete with communications — including dates, locations and pictures — of a sexual nature. He conveniently left that out.”
“He, I guess, fails to comprehend that we really state: We don’t want to go public. We don’t want to destroy his career. We don’t want to do any of that,” the attorney continued. “We’re making a valid claim under the Congressional Accountability Act.”
The affair revelation rocked Adrian and Regina’s marriage and the couple went to counseling for a few months before ultimately choosing to separate in the fall of 2024, according to Aviles’ lawyer.
Regina continued to live in their marriage house — but was cut off from direct contact with the congressman even as she served as his regional director in Texas, according to a former Gonzales staffer, during the Republican’s re-election bid for a third term.
One leaked text message between Regina and the colleague, who is now serving as an aide to two Democratic campaigns, showed her admitting to an “affair” with Gonzales, which the House Republican dismissed as a “smear” pushed by his GOP primary opponent, a YouTuber and Second Amendment-enthusiast, Brandon Herrera.
Last October, when the Daily Mail first reported on the affair allegations, Gonzales responded that it was just “people throwing rocks at me, saying I’m doing nasty things.”
Adrian Aviles lashed out Thursday that the congressman had now “tripled down” on his “lies.”
“I see a man that runs from accountability — that’s a coward,” Aviles scolded the House rep for an “abuse of power and manipulation” of his late wife.
“This is not a f–king political thing for me,” he also fumed, pointing out he had not gotten involved in the scandal now roiling the Republican primary in Texas’ 23rd Congressional District and run “campaign ads” or “commercials” months ago.
Republican primary voters in the Lone Star State will head to the polls on March 3.
“I was trying to remain silent. I did not want this out there. … I wanted all this to just be behind us,” Aviles added. “He will not be allowed to lie about my wife again. … He’s already done it twice, and I remained silent because I have an eight-year-old son.”
Santos-Aviles, 35, poured gasoline on herself and ignited the fluid with a lighter, engulfing herself in flames in the backyard of her Uvalde, Texas, home on Sept. 13 — dying of the injuries she sustained the following day.
Uvalde authorities later ruled the death a suicide, and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office determined in December not to release additional security camera or bodycam footage captured of the tragedy, as well as the 911 dispatch call or associated police reports.
Aviles and his lawyer have questioned the official account.
“This was, an act of nature, but an accident as well. … She got too close to the flame,” Aviles said. “She was completely coherent as EMS arrived on scene and she had a whole conversation with them stating that she didn’t want to die. She didn’t mean to do this.”
The bereaved husband said he asked for the records of the incident to be sealed from the public because his “son doesn’t need to get on YouTube and be able to see this in five years.”
“My son lost his mother,” Aviles added. “That’s the biggest heartbreak of it all.”
Barrera also said, “While she clearly created the circumstances that caused her death, I don’t think she intended to light herself on fire.”
“This was a desperate cry for help and attention. This is where I am in my life. And that’s why I don’t think it was an intentional suicidal act,” he added. “That’s the worst, most painful death you can inflict upon yourself.”
A spokesperson for Gonzales’ office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
