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A woman who launched a firestorm by posting a 2004 video of her father, a Texas judge, beating her on the Internet said Thursday that violence was a regular occurrence in her family home.

"It did happen regularly, for a period of time, and I could tell, because of the pattern, that things were escalating again," Hillary Adams, now 23, said on NBC's "Today." She said she left her video camera on her dresser recording and covered its light with a scarf in order to capture the video.

Her father, Aransas County, Texas, Court-At-Law Judge William Adams, faces a police investigation and a judicial probe after the graphic video surfaced of him striking his then-16-year-old daughter repeatedly while cursing at her and berating her.

On Wednesday afternoon, William Adams was temporarily relieved of his duties for the next two weeks, and a visiting judge will take over his caseload while the matter is being investigated, according to the office of Aransas County Administrative Judge Burt Mills.

No court dates were scheduled this week, Mills' office said.

A woman who launched a firestorm by posting a 2004 video of her father, a Texas judge, beating her on the Internet said Thursday that violence was a regular occurrence in her family home.

"It did happen regularly, for a period of time, and I could tell, because of the pattern, that things were escalating again," Hillary Adams, now 23, said on NBC's "Today." She said she left her video camera on her dresser recording and covered its light with a scarf in order to capture the video.

Her father, Aransas County, Texas, Court-At-Law Judge William Adams, faces a police investigation and a judicial probe after the graphic video surfaced of him striking his then-16-year-old daughter repeatedly while cursing at her and berating her.

On Wednesday afternoon, William Adams was temporarily relieved of his duties for the next two weeks, and a visiting judge will take over his caseload while the matter is being investigated, according to the office of Aransas County Administrative Judge Burt Mills.

No court dates were scheduled this week, Mills' office said.

The 2004 beating occurred when her father was punishing her for using the Internet "to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time," Hillary Adams wrote on the Internet posting. She said she released the video after being harassed by her father.

"It was the straw that broke the camel's back," she said Thursday. "It wasn't any huge happening or anything." She said she told her father she had the video, "and he didn't seem to think anything of it, and basically dared me to post it."

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."

Receiving an outpouring of support after posting the video has been like a form of therapy, she told KRIS, which is based in Corpus Christi, Texas.

"People are believing us now, instead of calling us liars like they have in the past," she said.

The video is punctuated by cracks of the man's belt and the girl's screams and cries.

At one point, the man says to his near-hysterical daughter, "What happened to you, Hillary? Once you were an obedient, nice little girl. Now you lie, cheat and steal."

At another point in the 7 1/2-minute video, he yells at her, "You want to put some more computer games on? You want some more?"

"Are you happy?" he asks her. "Disobeying your parents? You don't deserve to f---ing be in this house."

He also berates the girl's mother for allowing a "f---ing computer" in the house.

The older woman also strikes the girl with a belt once, and near the end of the video instructs the girl not to "touch one other thing on the computer besides your schoolwork until you are given notice otherwise."

Hillary Adams "has had ataxic cerebral palsy from birth that led her to a passion for technology, which was strictly forbidden by her father's backwards views," according to the posting on the YouTube video.

Aransas County Attorney Richard Bianchi said his office has been overwhelmed with calls and e-mails, including some from overseas, since the video went viral on the Internet.

"Just a sad day. It's unfortunate for all the people in that video. It doesn't bode well for the image of our community or our judiciary or our legal community in Aransas County," Bianchi said.

William Adams is up for re-election in three years, Mills told CNN. He was elected to a four-year term last year, said Aransas County Clerk Peggy Friebele

CNN tried repeatedly on Wednesday to reach William Adams at his Rockport, Texas, office, but received a constant busy signal.

But Adams told KRIS that the conduct is "not as bad as it looks on tape." The judge said he had contacted judicial review officials in Austin and "more will come out" in the investigation, KRIS reported.

Asked what he might mean, Hallie Adams said on "Today," "I think that the story that's going to come out ... in his mind is that he's projected his problem onto me. For the entire four years since I've left the marriage, I've been abused and harassed through texts, e-mail." She said she told William Adams in June that she would not speak to him again, and "he has threatened to file for modification and take my younger daughter away from me."

Asked whether she wants her father to lose his job, Hillary Adams said on "Today," "I think wishing anybody to lose their job is not a really good thing to do," but "his being fit for the job, that's something I really can't say that he is."

She said she believes her father has been punished enough by the video being made public, "and I just think he really needs help and rehabilitation. We need to get him counseling or something."

Asked if she regretted posting it, 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 so many people are telling me I did the right thing." More at http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/03/justice/texas-video-beating/index.html?h
pt=hp_t2

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The fear that I might somehow turn out just like my father.

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You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father.

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