At one time Dale Fritchen was a confidant and mentor to Sam Fant when the now 28-year-old was embarking on his political career.
But on Monday, the former Manteca Unified School Board Trustee and former Stockton City Councilman – a track that Fant is trying to follow by running for Fritchen’s old seat in November – laid all of that to rest when he testified in Fant’s election fraud hearing that the embattled politician admitted to him that he had used ringers in the 2014 election to secure votes on the board of education.
Fant, who chose not to run again for the Manteca Unified seat representing Weston Ranch as he focuses on his race against Jesus Andrade to represent the same area and a larger swath of South Stockton on the council, is facing two counts of election fraud and two counts of conspiracy for allegedly recruiting Alexander Drain and Ashley Bronson to run for school board when they didn’t live in the area.
Both Drain and Bronson were also brought up on separate charges – Bronson took a plea deal and is awaiting sentencing while Drain is scheduled to go to trial this month.
And while the San Joaquin District Attorney’s office – which Fant unsuccessfully characterized as “biased” in their “selective prosecution” in an attempt to have them removed from the case – still hasn’t met the evidentiary threshold to move the case to trial (his preliminary hearing will continue on Nov. 1) the testimony on Monday painted a picture of a frustrated board trustee that didn’t have the necessary votes to pursue his agenda that acted outside of the law in order to make that possible.
According to an article in The Record that ran on Tuesday, Fritchen testified that in 2014 Fant admitted to him that he had recruited both Drain and Bronson to run for the Manteca Unified school board, and that when he read reports in local news outlets that they might not be eligible for the position, Fant told him he filled out the paperwork that included false addresses in Manteca and Weston Ranch. That included the damning nomination paperwork that listed a Manteca address that Bronson used on Drain’s paperwork that was sloppily crossed out and written over with a house in the appropriate area.
Fant has denied the allegations, and through his attorney, Yolonda Huang, accused the District Attorney’s office of going after Fant for political reasons – in an attempt to get him not to run for Stockton City Council. His attempt to get the California Attorney General’s office to take over the case failed, as did attempts to get grand jurors excused from their confidentiality clauses so that they could paint a damning report on him as “biased” and even “racist” in nature.
Fritchen reportedly told Huang, when he has being cross-examined, that he wished he would have come forward with the information that Fant disclosed to him sooner rather than sitting on it for such an extended period of time, that he “should have” come forward sooner and when pressed whether he recognized that what Fant allegedly admitted to was a crime, replied “I understand it is a crime. I was wrong.”
Fritchen wasn’t the only one who reportedly heard Fant make the comment that he was the one orchestrating the candidates.
Richard Smith, a former Weston Ranch resident who is being sued by Fant in civil court for allegedly attributing something to Fant which he denies at a public function, testified that Fant – who was then a friend – told him that he “didn’t care where they lived” because he needed their votes on the board.
Fritchen helped jumpstart Fant’s career when in 2009, at only age 20, the then Stockton Councilman appointed Fant to the Stockton Planning Commission. He ran for a seat on the Manteca Unified board just three years later, and has been active in San Joaquin County a member of the Board of Directors of the San Joaquin County Fair. 

To contact reporter Jason Campbell email jcampbell@mantecabulletin.com or call 209.249.3544.