Texas Judge Seen in Video Beating Daughter With Belt 'Lost Temper'
The Texas judge who was caught on video beating his disabled daughter with a belt in 2004 has confirmed that it is indeed him on the clip that started gaining attention Wednesday, and, according to media accounts, he has not shown immediate regret.
Aransas County, Texas, Judge William Adams has confirmed with local news station KZTV Wednesday that the person on the video is himself, and he said he beat his then-16-year-old daughter, Hillary, because he lost his temper.
"She's mad because I've ordered her to bring the car back, in a nutshell, but yeah, that's me. I lost my temper," Adams told the TV station. "Her mother was there, she wasn't hurt."
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"I really don't want to get into this right now because as you can see my life's been made very difficult over this child," the man added. He reportedly gave the interview in fron of his Rockport, Texas, home.
The graphic video drew international outrage after it was posted online after 7 years of the daughter keeping it and, according to her account, experiencing abuse.
The judge did not show any signs of guilt over what some viewers of the video claim is an evident act of domestic violence against his own child.
"In my mind I have not done anything wrong other than discipline my child when she was caught stealing. I did lose my temper, I've apologized. ... it looks worse than it is," the judge told Channel 6 KRIS TV when asked if he felt he was going to face any suspension or discipline from the state over the video.
The "stealing" the judge refers to was his daughter downloading video games from the Internet, according to CNN.
In an interview with the same TV station, Hillary Adams said that the scene in the video was her life for years. Thursday, in an interview with NBC Today, Adams confirmed that she and her mother suffered years of abuse at the hands of her father.
"I think (my father) has been punished enough just by seeing this go public like this, and I think he just really needs help and rehabilitation," she said. "I regret that some of my friends and some people close to me have kind of had trouble with this, and of course, I regret that it's my own father. I'm having very mixed feelings about that, but at the same time people are telling me that I did the right thing, so there have been definitely different emotions.''
On Wednsday, the young woman told KZTV that her father did not seem to realize that what he has done was even wrong.
"I told him that I had the video, and he acted like he had nothing to worry about," she told the station. "And I said, I can post the video, of you beating me on the Internet, and he said, 'well, you can do that if it makes you feel better.' So I did."
She also said that she has been communicating with her father only via writing for years, at his own request.
Some locals and people who knew the Adams family told KRIS TV at first that they found it hard to believe that the man in the video was indeed the judge. One man told the station Wednesday that he would "probably" not vote for Adams again.
Yesterday, The Christian Post reported on a conversation with a local criminal defense attorney who predicted that "nothing" would happen to Adams despite a police investigation.
Rockport, Texas-based attorney Terry Collins believes that although Adams will not face criminal charges, he will suffer career setbacks as a result of the video, which the attorney described as "shocking."
