San Angelo Man Indicted for Stealing from WWII Veteran

SAN ANGELO,TX- Ray Elmar Fritze has been indicted by a Tom Green County grand jury in June for stealing from a 99-year-old, World War II veteran.

According to court documents, Fritze agreed to buy the victim a motor home. To pay for it, the victim gave Fritze $5,000.00 but Fritze never bought the motor home. The victim was never given a title to and Fritze ignored the victim’s attempts to get into contact with him.

Fritze was an old family friend and the victim had known Fritze since he was a little kid. 

The victim withdrew $4,000.00 from his bank account and Fritze took the other $1,000.00 from the victim’s house. At the time, the victim was in a nursing home battling COVID-19 and the victim’s wife was in a nursing home as well.

One witness said that Ray Fritze took advantage of the victim due to the victim having COVID-19 and his mind wasn’t working as well as it should have been.

The victim’s step son personally let Fritze into the victim’s house to get the $1,000.00 and gave investigators a bank statement showing a $4,000.00 withdrawal from the bank account in December 2020.

Investigators attempted to make contact with Ray Fritze several times but never succeeded.

Ray Fritze was arrested and booked into the TGCDF on 4/22/2021 and was released on $10,000.00.

The charges were enhanced due to the victim's age and previous theft charges on Fritze's record.