Texas court suspends judge taped beating daughter

A judge caught on video beating his daughter with a belt in 2004 was suspended Tuesday by the Texas Supreme Court.The court order does not give a reason for the suspensionThe judge was roundly criticized when a video of him beating his daughter with a belt surfacedJudge has defended his actions from video

(CNN) -- Judge William Adams, who made national headlines after the release of a 2004 video of him beating his then-teenage daughter, has been suspended by the Texas Supreme Court.

The reason for the action was not mentioned in an order of suspension that was made public Tuesday.

Adams, a court-at-law judge in Aransas County, was roundly criticized when his now-adult daughter posted online a video of him beating her with a belt when she was 16.

The video also showed the judge cursing and berating Hillary Adams.

Adams was punishing the girl for using the Internet "to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time," Hillary Adams wrote on the web posting.

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

At one point in the 7 1/2-minute video, 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."

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.

"I wanted to show my father, 'Hey, I think you were in some denial about the way you are treating me and my mother.' And maybe showing him this would make him see something he didn't before," Hillary Adams, now 23, told CNN.

Earlier this month, William Adams released a statement to explain his side of the story.

"If the public must know, just prior to the YouTube upload, a concerned father shared with his 23-year-old daughter that he was unwilling to continue to work hard and be her primary source of financial support, if she was going to simply 'drop out,' and strive to achieve no more in life than to work part-time at a video game store," the judge said in a statement.

Adams handles family-related and juvenile court issues for the county court system.

Font: CNN