PLATTSBURGH — After being sworn in to his sixth consecutive four-year term in office today, Andrew Wylie is now Clinton County’s longest serving district attorney.
Wylie said he is the record holder by one day, beating out Tom North, who served from 1952 to 1972.
He told the media when he was first elected that it was not a goal of his to break the record, but as time went on and it began to look more attainable, it was in the back of his mind.
“A number of years ago, we did a historical project with the district attorneys for Clinton County, and looking at that, seeing how long … the different individual attorneys served, it was kind of like, ‘It’d kind of be neat,’” he said.
“And not only am I the longest serving DA in Clinton County, as of today, I’m the third longest serving active DA in the state, so that’s kind of cool.”
Wylie said he is excited to continue what he started 20 years ago.
“To continue to do the work that the people of Clinton County have voted me in to do, and their trust in my abilities, my office’s abilities to not only prosecute the individuals who are charged with crimes in our county, but to protect the victims of those crimes,” he said. “Which is, bottom line, probably the most important thing that I remain concerned with, and I’m very proud of what we’ve done over the past 20 years.”
Looking back on his last four years, Wylie said he was proud to establish two victim advocates in the district attorney’s office, which he says has been an “extreme benefit” to his assistant district attorneys.
There’s also still plenty of work to do to improve the district attorney’s office that he hopes to accomplish in this term, he said.
“One of the initiatives that we’re going to continue to pursue in not only my office, but 62 counties in the state is some minor changes in Albany with the Discovery Reform, Bail Reform, just so we’re able to lessen … the workload of my staff. The time restrictions that some of those legislations back in 2020 have impacted every DA office in the state,” Wylie said. “So I think just looking at that in the future, that would be something that we would hope to accomplish over the next four years.”
The two decades of experience Wylie has in the position will be important moving forward as crime, specifically homicides, have seen an increase in recent years.
Wylie said as 2025 closed out, the county had the most homicides it ever had over the past 18 months, which has been challenging.
“With the six homicides that we had in the county, it’s been an extremely difficult time,” he said.
“I’ve also had a lot of turnover in the office. I’ve had assistants that have moved on to other positions or other jobs, and so backfilling those positions has been extremely difficult … (in) actually finding attorneys that will come to the North Country.”
Wylie acknowledged there has been a lot of turnover with district attorneys across the state as well, but here in Clinton County, he has kept stability at the position.
He also did not rule out running for another term.
“I love this job,” Wylie said.