Family law judge exposed for beating his daughter, 16, in a video she posted online loses his re-election bid
- Judge William Adams has failed to win a fourth term following a lack of support from voters in Aransas County, Texas
- He made national news in 2011 when a video of him viciously beating his daughter appeared on YouTube
- Daughter Hillary had secretly filmed the 2004 incident and released it because she didn't think he should be a judge
- Adams maintained that the video made the beat 'look worse than it was'
- He was suspended with pay for a year, but in 2012 was reinstated by the Texas Supreme Court
The Texas family law judge who was famously caught on video viciously beating his then teenage daughter has lost his re-election bid.
Unofficial returns show Arkansas County voters rejected William Adams in the Republican primary on Tuesday.
In November 2011, justices had suspended Judge Adams with pay while the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct investigated the 2004 video which his daughter Hillary had secretly filmed.
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Video controversy: Texas family law judge Williams Adams, pictured left, has failed to win a fourth term, it was his first election since he was famously caught on video viciously beating his daughter Hillary, pictured right
Hillary Adams said she had released the video to compel her father to get help and show that he was unfit as a judge.
But just a year later Adams had his suspension lifted by the Texas Supreme Court, although he was no longer allowed to preside over physical domestic abuse cases.
Adams will be replaced on the bench by County Attorney Richard Bianchi, reports The Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Bianchi didn’t resurrect the video for political gain, but the result suggests it had had a negative impact on voters.
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No Democrats challenged Adams, who had sought a fourth full term.
The nearly eight-minute clip of the beating got millions of views and showed the judge lashing Hillary on the legs more than a dozen times and growing increasingly irate while she screamed and refused to turn over on a bed to be beaten.
‘Lay down or I'll spank you in your (expletive) face,’ he screamed as she pleaded for him to stop.
The beating had happened because she had illegally downloaded files from the internet.
Warning disturbing content: Watch video here
Reconciled: Hallie Adams, left, and her daughter, Hillary Adams, have reconciled and arrived at court together in 2011 where William Adams was fighting for visitation with his 10-year-old daughter
Neither Hillary – nor her mother Hallie – who divorced Adams in 2007, have commented on Tuesday’s decision.
In the past both had expressed their disappointment in the decisions of the state commission and Supreme Court not to fire Adams over his actions.
The Arkansas County district attorney ruled too much time had passed to bring criminal charges against the judge.
The video posting said: 'Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can't even exercise fit judgment as a parent himself.
'Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again. His "judgment" is a giant farce. Signed, Hillary Adams, his daughter.'
However, at one point during the disturbing video, Adams was joined by his wife Hallie, who took over the beatings, demanding that their daughter 'take it like a woman'.
Mother and daughter have since reconciled.
Vicious: The YouTube video showed Texas judge William Adams savagely beating his disabled daughter with a belt 20 times as she begged him to stop
No remorse: William Adams repeatedly denied wrongdoing, claiming he was 'just disciplining my child' and that the video 'looks worse than it is'
Miss Adams - who is now 26 - said of her mother: 'When I showed her the video, she was so devastated that she could have ever done anything so awful and wouldn’t stop apologizing.
'My mother was brainwashed by my father. She was a total doormat. They met when they were teenagers.'
Speaking in 2011 about why she finally decided to post the video, she said: 'I had a feeling that I needed to hold on to it and show it to someone one day.'
'We were the perfect, normal nuclear family,. Everyone thought he was the perfect person.
'He couldn’t do anything wrong in the eyes of our neighbors. He was two-faced.
'He needs help': William Adams' daughter said her main motivation behind making the video public was to force him to apologise and 'to get psychological help'
Brave: Hillary Adams spoke out about the years of abuse suffered at the hands of her father
'It was the straw that broke the camel's back. It wasn't any huge happening or anything.'
To their friends and neighbors the Adams family who lived in Rockport, Texas represented an ideal of wholesome American life.
The image was reinforced by her father's prestigious job, his regular church attendance and his seemingly happy marriage to his wife Haille.
In private, Miss Adams said, he was a different person; controlling, angry and unpredictable.
Explaining how her father acted towards her, she revealed he refused to acknowledge his daughter's cerebral palsy 'because he felt it would reflect badly on him', referring to her as 'a retard' when she was unable to carry out menial tasks such as sweeping the drive.
'I once forgot to feed the family pet and he kicked me in the garage. I said, ‘Dad, that’s child abuse’ and he said, ‘You don’t know what child abuse is’.
'In his job, he would see terrible cases every day, so kicking his own daughter was no big deal.'
She claimed that he deliberately stood on her wrist for long periods and forced her younger sister, now aged 12, to attend an adult gym because 'You’re a fat f****** pig.'
Because Miss Adams was taught at home and her bruises were hidden beneath trousers, the abuse went undetected by the outside world.
'My dad is still saying I wasn’t hurt, which is a complete lie because I showed him all the bruises, up and down my legs. I said, ‘It hurts to walk’ and he said, ‘Good’.'
Judge Adams repeatedly denied wrongdoing when the video came out, claiming he was 'just disciplining my child' and that the video 'looks worse than it is.'
Miss Adams, whose main motivation, she said was to force her father to apologize and 'to get psychological help',
'I wanted to hold a mirror up to his behavior. I can’t say that vengeance wasn’t at least a small part of it.
'But I wanted him to be shocked and wanted other people to see it to try and get him to change. I thought this was a way to get through to him.'
Miss Adams spoke out about her abusive upbringing because she felt it was important to encourage other children to come forward if they suffer at the hands of their parents.
'All schools should explain what verbal and physical abuse is as a mandatory part of the national curriculum,' she said.
'Children need to know what abuse is. I know a lot of people who have experienced it that but that they don’t know what is right or wrong.'
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