The husband of a congressional aide who died by suicide last year following an alleged affair with Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) slammed the lawmaker for touting his “family values.”
“The man has no values,” widower Adrian Aviles told CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday. “He runs his whole campaign on family values, and he runs everything saying that he’s some family man. He’s actually quite a sick man.”
Several Republicans called on Gonzales to resign or suspend his reelection campaign in the wake of 2024 text messages between him and staffer Regina Santos-Aviles, the wife of Adrian Aviles. In one text message, the lawmaker had allegedly asked her for a “sexy pic.”
Gonzales denied the affair allegations, claiming he is being blackmailed, and refused to resign. He told CNN’s Manu Raju “what you’ve seen is not all the facts.”
Aviles told Burnett that his marriage fell apart following his discovery of the affair, saying that his wife entered a depressive episode before she ultimately took her own life by setting herself on fire.
