For years, Oscar Villacis was seen as a rising star in New Hampshire Democratic politics. A young Latino entrepreneur who turned a viral moment into a media platform won seats on city boards, posed for photos with members of Congress, and even got invited to the White House.
Now, as he launches a bid for the Nashua School Board, Villacis is facing explosive allegations from a former business partner and intern who says she endured years of emotional and financial abuse at his hands.
Oscar Villacis
Jasmine Torres, who once worked side by side with Villacis at his company, First Gen Multimedia, published a Substack essay detailing what she described as three years of verbal attacks, unpaid labor, and mounting personal debt tied to the business.
“I lived in a state of abuse for three years,” Torres told NHJournal. “People are afraid to be called a racist and are afraid of calling him out. When push comes to shove, they know he can pull the race card.”
Villacis launched his media career in 2020 when local Nashua radio host Dianna Ploss was fired after she video-recorded herself verbally harassing Hispanic laborers. Villacis took to social media, crowdfunded thousands in startup cash, and launched a show that focused on the Latino community.
In her essay, The Expose I Didn’t Want to Write,” Torres described being drawn into Villacis’s fledgling Latino-focused radio show in 2020, eventually becoming a full-time partner while still working unpaid. She alleged Villacis pressured her to reinvest revenue back into the company, leaving her unable to pay for heating or child care, and saddled her with more than $20,000 in debt to the firm.
Torres said she was subjected to late-night yelling, public beratings in the studio, and isolation from family and friends. “Because I had never been a part of a startup, I just thought this was normal business partner behavior from the stress, but it wasn’t,” she wrote.
Villacis, in an interview, acknowledged the partnership soured but called Torres’s account “baseless.” He described her as a “disgruntled former business partner” but insisted he empathizes with her pain.
“The pain is real, and it is something I do not dismiss,” Villacis said. “To speak from a place of hurt takes courage, and I want to honor that courage … I’m a champion of women, I’m raising daughters, I have nothing but love and respect.”
As for allegations of yelling, Villacis framed it as cultural. “When it comes to Latino culture and passion, when we talk loud, it might sound like we’re yelling,” he said. “She wasn’t the only one on the receiving end of the yelling; I was, too. What we were doing was for the greater cause.”
He confirmed Torres had signed non-disclosure and noncompete agreements, but said he chose not to enforce them when she left to work at PBS in 2023.
“I didn’t block that. I was happy she was able to move on and provide for her family,” he said.
Torres told NHJournal she initially planned to stay silent, but decided to speak out after Villacis began moving into politics. He was recently appointed to a Nashua city communications committee by Mayor Jim Donchess and is now campaigning for the school board.
“I knew he was going to run for the school board. That’s what really shook me the most,” Torres said.
She added that Democratic officials she confided in declined to intervene, sympathetic but unwilling to confront Villacis. “The Democratic Party abandoned me,” she said.
Villacis complained that large parts of the New Hampshire Democratic Party are biased against assertive Latino men like himself, when it should be embracing them.
“In order for us to succeed, we need to come together. The Democratic Party is set up to tear themselves apart right now,” Villacis said.
