WAPAKONETA — A longtime prosecutor announced Thursday his candidacy for Auglaize County Municipal Court judge after the current long-time judge said he plans to retire.
Andrew Augsburger, 46, filed his nominating petitions Thursday with the Auglaize County Board of Elections to seek the job as judge of Auglaize County Municipal Court. Augsburger announced his candidacy after Judge Gary Herman announced plans to retire after 36 years on the bench.
Augsburger said his professional life has been spent serving the citizens of Auglaize County as an assistant prosecutor but believes he can do more as a judge. The decision to run is something he’s thought about for a long time and with Herman’s recent announcement, the time was right.
“When Judge Herman announced he was retiring, this is the next step to continue serving the citizens of Auglaize County,” Augsburger said.
Augsburger is the first to file to run for the job. The race is non-partisan and will be on the ballot in November. He is a Republican and has spent a decade in leadership roles in the Auglaize County Republican Party.
The 46-year-old Augsburger lives in Wapakoneta where he and his wife, Candice, are raising their three children.
Augsburger has been an attorney since 1995 and is a graduate of Ohio Northern University’s law school. He began his career in January 1997 at the Auglaize County Prosecutor’s Office as an assistant prosecutor. He has represented Auglaize County in criminal and civil matters.
In 2016, he was awarded the Meritorious Assistant Prosecutor Award by the Ohio Prosecuting Attorney Association. Prosecutor Ed Pierce, who nominated Augsburger for the award, praised him for doing just about every job in the office that could be done. Pierce called him his “go-to person.”
In 2015, Augsburger received the Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award from the Auglaize County Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 76 for his work in prosecuting defendants in the murder of a Uniopolis man and for putting a man in prison for 40 years who photographed nude teenage girls.
