Judge Under Investigation, Video Shows Him Beating Disabled Daughter

Texas judge William Adams under investigation after video aparently shows him beating disabled daughter
The New York Daily News by Ethan Sacks  -  November 2, 2011

Daughter says she posted 2004 footage on YouTube after pattern of abuse

Texas Judge William Adam is facing Texas justice after a video showing him severely beating his then-teenage daughter, who suffers from cerebral palsy, went viral.  A Texas judge is being investigated over a shocking web video that appears to show him using a belt to whip his then 16-year-old daughter, who has cerebral palsy.  Police in Rockport, Texas, called in the Texas Rangers, the state’s top lawmen, to investigate Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams, after people complained about the video, The Associated Press reported.  The video, uploaded to YouTube on Oct. 27 by a person who claimed to be Adams’ daughter, Hillary, shows a man berating and savagely beating a teenage girl with a belt. The man hits her in the legs and sides of her body.  “Is it fun to disobey your mom and dad?" the man can be heard screaming as he unleashes a barrage of lashings.  He became enraged when the girl refused to bend over to leave her buttocks exposed for a thrashing.  “You don't deserve to be in this f----n house!” the man raged.  A woman, whose face can’t be seen in the video but is believed to be Hillary Adams’ mother, yells at the girl to “turn over like a 16-year-old and take it!”  At one point during the more than 7-minute-long video, the man leaves the room and returns with a second belt to continue the wicked assault.  The confrontation was apparently sparked after Hillary Adams downloaded music files, something her parents had forbidden her to do. It is believed to have happened in 2004.  The video was picked up late Tuesday on the website Reddit, leading it to go viral, with more than 600,000 people having viewed it.  The Houston Chronicle reported Wednesday that authorities have confirmed the man in the video is Williams Adams.  “Obviously, it is a very disturbing video. We in my office as well as everyone on earth is taking a look at it, at this time,” Aransas County Attorney Richard Bianchi told The Chronicle, confirming that the man in the video is Adams.  Adams is a family law judge, who presides over child abuse cases, The AP reported.  Aransas County Sheriff Bill Mills told the news service Wednesday that Judge Adams disconnected his phone lines because of a deluge of threatening calls.  When confronted by a reporter for local KRIS-TV, the judge said: "It happened years ago. I apologized.”  "It's not as bad as it looks on tape," he added.  With News Wire Services  -  esacks@nydailynews.com

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Texas sheriff's office opens probe after YouTube video shows judge beating daughter
The Washington Post by Melissa Bell  -  November 3, 2011

The video is seven minutes of stomach-churning violence, as a man whips a teenage girl with a belt, cursing her when she does not lay on her stomach to take the beating. Posted last week on YouTube, the video went viral on Tuesday after it was linked on the message board Reddit.  Hillary Adams, the daughter of Aransas County Court-at-Law Judge William Adams, practices the piano at her home in Rockport, Texas. (Rachel Denny Clow/AP)  The person who uploaded the video: the girl being beaten in the video, Hillary Adams. Now 23, Adams secretly recorded the video in 2004. It shows her father, Aransas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams, whipping her with a belt after she illegally downloaded music off the Internet.  After the video went viral on YouTube, Adams told the Associated Press she felt some regret for posting the video online, but that she hoped it would force him to get help.  In the video description on YouTube Adams wrote, “Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can’t even exercise fit judgement as a parent himself. Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again. His ‘judgement’ is a giant farce. Signed, Hillary Adams, his daughter.”  She then linked the video on Reddit, where it quickly became one of the top read and most recommended stories on the site Tuesday night. Other Reddit users tracked down the numbers to the sheriff’s department and the judge’s office in Rockport, Tx.  The judge could not be reached for comment, as his phone line remained busy throughout Wednesday morning. The Web site for the court remained offline as well, likely due to a huge increase in traffic.  Early Wednesday afternoon, the Corpus Christi, Tx. television station KRIS reached Judge Adams who said, “It happened years ago ... I apologized.” He also said the video made his conduct look worse than it was.  Police Chief Tim Jayroe, when reached by phone by The Post, said his office had been flooded with calls. The video was brought to his office’s attention Tuesday night and it opened an investigation into the video.  He said the office started a criminal investigation to look into the video and asked the Department of Public Safety to assist in the investigation. He said they had no reason to believe the girl in the video was in any additional danger, as the video seemed to have been taken seven years earlier.  In a Reddit comment, Hillary Adams said she secretly recorded her father, but never showed it to anyone until she uploaded it on YouTube. She said a volatile phone conversation with her father the night before prompted her to finally post it.  In the video, a woman also beats the girl with a belt, though she appears to be attempting to defuse the man’s anger. The video description identifies the woman as Judge Adams’ wife, Hallie Adams, and claims she was also abused by her husband and subsequently divorced him. In a Facebook page that appears to have been created today, Hallie Adams posted a message saying she hopes “for my daughters to both finally be able to go to counseling both individually and as a family group with their Dad’s approval, encouragement, involvement and support, for him to finally make amends to all of us, talk openly with us, and take the first steps to letting our broken family heal.”  In other YouTube videos on the same account, a video posted more than a year ago identifies the same girl as Hillary. In another video, posted on Tuesday, the girl is shown as a young adult displaying her first toy, a miniature piano, as well as the splints she wore from a young age for ataxic cerebral palsy.  Hillary Adams has not returned requests for comment, though she has been posting remarks on Reddit and Twitter.  The attention online spurred concerns for Judge Adams’ safety. In one Reddit post about the topic, a user writes, “By advocating for violence and retribution against Judge Adams, we are stooping to his level.”  His daughter agrees, writing on Twitter Wednesday morning: “Please spread the word that my father needs professional help and not hatred. We can offer him the tools to be a better person.”  (Via Reddit)