A pair of individuals have been indicted by a grand jury in Colorado for their role in running an alleged student loan debt settlement scam. The pair — Jalon Torres and Lisa Marie Ritter — earned more than $1 million from hundreds of victims who were defrauded.
Torres, 45, was the registered agent for Student Resolution Center, which was also known as the Student Resource Center. Going back as far as 2015, he made false promises to individuals with student loan debt as a means of inducing those borrowers to make payments to his company instead of to their student loan servicers, according to prosecutors. Torres falsely promised to reduce or eliminate the individuals’ student loan debts by making a certain number of payments to his company. To get his money, Torres obtained authorization to the individuals’ bank accounts and withdrew payments, which happened to more more than what was listed in the contracts that the individuals signed.
The two defendants allegedly used the proceeds from their scam to buy a house and purchase a luxury vehicle.
Ritter was arrested and made her first appearance before a judge this week, pleading not guilty. Torres was arrested in Florida and is awaiting further proceedings.
In doing some digging on Torres, I came across an article from 2022
It is the same Jalon Torres in the cyberstalking case. I knew him personally when I was younger and had to end all communication with him. He was harassing and threatening me at my workplace. Threatened to bomb our office so we called the policy and they placed a BOLO on him. He’s definitely disturbed. I feel for his mother, she’s always tried to help him but he just never wanted to get help.