The Texas family court judge, William Adams, who was seen whipping his disabled 16-year old daughter with a belt in a viral YouTube video will face no federal criminal charges, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office, despite a call for charges from a former child abuse prosecutor. Local authorities, due to statute of limitations restrictions, have also declined to prosecute the Aransas County Republican, who has three years left to serve in his elected office.
The Houston Chronicle notes that Adams, Aransas County’s top judge, “has dealt with at least 349 family law cases in the past year alone, nearly 50 of which involved state caseworkers seeking determine whether parents were fit to raise their children,” and adds,
Aransas County District Attorney Patrick Flanigan said Thursday the statute of limitations on charges such as injury to a child expired after five years.
“I would expect that yeah, charges would have been pursued but for the inability to proceed due to the statute of limitations,” Flanigan said Friday. “You know, whether that would have been a felony or a misdemeanor charge I can’t say but I think there would’ve been some action pursued.”
County Attorney Richard Bianchi, meanwhile, said a visiting judge would handle all Adams’ cases, not just those involving the state’s child protective services as originally planned, for the next two weeks. Adams often presides over child abuse cases.
“Now the issue is to wait on the actions of the State Commission on Judicial Conduct,” Bianchi said, referring to a state panel investigating the judge. Bianchi said he’d be “surprised” if Adams, 51, returned to the bench before the commission concludes its investigation.
Adams issued a three-page statement Thursday saying his daughter posted the clip to get back at him for telling her he would be reducing the amount of financial support he gives her and taking away her Mercedes.
The statement did not include an apology for the beating, but he told Corpus Christi television station KZTV this week that the video “looks worse than it is,” that he already had apologized to his daughter and that he was just disciplining his child for stealing.
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This is the video that Hillary Adams posted to YouTube recently, which The New Civil Rights Movement posted last week. It has received over 4.3 million hits on YouTube.
Caution: Graphic Video — those who may be triggered should be especially cautious.