Ottoville man granted judicial release on drug charges

OTTAWA — An Ottoville man was granted judicial release Thursday in the Putnam County Common Pleas Court after serving almost two years of his four-and-a-half-year prison term for selling methamphetamine to an undercover informant in 2022.

Broc Baughman, 34, was also ordered to pay restitution of $1,300 to the Northwest Ohio Drug Task Force.

Baughman has applied for judicial release once before in February but it was denied.

In 2022, Baughman received an identical sentence in Paulding County for identical drug sales. He served his sentences in both counties at the same time.

Baughman was indicted by a Putnam County grand jury on two counts of aggravated trafficking in drugs, both first-degree felonies, for knowingly selling methamphetamine from his home at 175 Wayne St. in Ottoville in the vicinity of Ottoville school. He is alleged to have first sold 22.6 grams of meth to the confidential informant for $650 and 58.6 grams of meth for $1,300 to the informant a day later.

Baughman pleaded guilty to amended third-degree counts of aggravated trafficking in drugs in exchange for the removal of language about the school and bulk amounts of drugs.

He told Judge Keith Schierloh prior to sentencing in 2022 that he sold the drugs to support his own meth habit, which he developed after being prescribed painkillers following a 2011 accident. He turned to meth, he told the judge, when the prescription ran its course. He said his supplier was “a guy in Delphos.”

Reach Charlotte Caldwell at 567-242-0451.