Texas Assistant stays calm amid judge beating fallout Calls poured in after video showed family judge whipping his daughter with a belt

By Mark Collette Corpus Christi Caller-Times CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) -- One woman called and didn't say anything -- she just broke into a hymn. "She sang about two or three verses, and she just politely hung up," Linda Garcia said. The executive assistant in the Aransas County Judge's Office, Garcia, 60, has become the patient ear and the calm voice of the county for hundreds of people who have called to complain, cry, threaten and sing about Judge William Adams. Garcia said she still loves her job. On Friday she had 300 messages in her voice mailbox. Everyone who leaves a number gets a call back. She estimated she had returned 50 calls since the story about Adams broke, and there are hundreds more messages to sort through. "So far I'm glad I have," Garcia said. "I've talked to some really, really nice people." She wants them all to know the county's not a bad place. The calls poured in the day after a video of county family law Judge Adams (not to be confused with County Judge Burt Mills, Garcia's boss) went viral on YouTube, exposing the belt-lashing he gave his daughter to millions of viewers. With a kind and confident voice, Garcia explained: No, we don't have the authority to remove Judge Adams. Yes, the police are investigating. No, the judge isn't hearing cases right now. Garcia hung up on a few -- the abusive, profane and threatening. Yet for most, she simply talked. "The majority of them think we knew about all this, and why have we allowed this to go on all this time?" Garcia said. "We've seen Judge Adams' court clerks literally break down and cry and walk out of the courthouse. I tell (callers), 'You don't think we're going through hell down here, too?' "Once I explain all this, their attitude changed completely." Garcia moved to Rockport, the county seat, seven years ago with her husband after retiring from her career as a paralegal in San Antonio. It was her first immersion into small-town life. She had to adjust to the everyone-knows-everyone culture. It hit home one weekend when she ran into her boss at the store and she was horrified because she was wearing a T-shirt and cutoff jeans. She didn't want a news story to focus on her, because all of her co-workers in all of the county offices -- even the tax office -- have been affected by the thousands of calls. But when you call the county's main number, Garcia's phone rings first. So will she stick around after all this? "I hope so; although there's a few people who have been calling in who think I should be fired for working for that 'blankety-blankety-blank,'" she said. "The language I'm hearing is just -- wow. But I love this county. ... I love this community, and I'm doing everything I can to improve it. I'm just appalled something like this can happen, and everyone else is, too. It's a difficult situation. I feel for the whole family. ... It's not just Judge Adams. It's an entire family that needs help." Published: Tue, Nov 8, 2011