‘Angels Of Adoption’ Arrested: Councilman And Wife Charged With Torturing Some Of Their 16 Children

A Kansas couple was awarded as “Angels of Adoptions” for adopting and fostering many children over the years. The couple, 34-year-old Topeka City Councilman Jonathan Schumm and 32-year-old Allison Nicole, adopted 10 children and were fostering two in addition to their four biological children. However, the “Angels of Adoption” may not have been angels after all. The couple has been charged with abusing five of the 16 children in their custody.

The Daily Mail reports that Jonathan Schumm and Allison Nicole were arrested after being accused of physically abusing five children between the ages of five and 16. The charges include one felony count of aggravated battery occurring between October 7 and 11, and four counts of endangering a child, which reportedly took place on October 31.

The Kansas Department for Children and Families requested help from the Topeka Police Department during an investigation of physical abuse at the home of the pair that were previously received an “Angels of Adoption” award. Invisible Children reports that the family is charged with either torturing or physically beating a 12-year-old child in their care while physically abusing four others in some undisclosed manner.

However, this wasn’t the first time that the Shumms were investigated for child abuse. In fact, the family was investigated by child protective services in 2013 during their second adoption proceedings. The child’s foster family reported bruising on him, and abuse of the other children, but the case was allegedly closed after being deemed “unfounded.”

Allison had also admitted on her blog, Shumm Family Explosion, which has recently been taken down, that she struggled with disciplining her adoptive children. She notes that the family once required the children to carry heavy buckets of rocks across a large one acre parking lot as punishment for throwing rocks through windows. In the blog post titled “Loving the unlovable (Bonding Part 2),” Allison says that she became frustrated when some of her children threw rocks through some windows and stole a toilet paper roll and then denied it.

“At this point I was starting to realize just 24 hours prior we had taken in furious vandalizing thieves and liars. Now I’m sure some of you are wondering what real life consequences there are for children who would throw rocks through 12 windows, steal a toilet paper dispenser and then lie about it. I will tell you it wasn’t easy. After carefully thinking about it and realizing that they were never going to be able to pay for it, Jonathan and I decided in loving our children they would have to fill [twelve] 40 pound cat litter buckets with rocks and carry them across our 1 acre parking lot of a yard and dump them.”

The blog post explains that the children had only been in the family’s care for 24 hours when the rock carrying punishment took place.

She also seemed to harbor resentment towards some of the children in posts, in which she called them bratty and noted that no one would have blamed her if she decided not to “deal” with the children.

“It would have been so easy for Jonathan and I to walk away and honestly who would have blamed the 7th month pregnant woman if she didn’t want to deal with 3 bratty children who didn’t love her, didn’t like her for giving them consequences and hated being in her home.”

Despite the frustrations, the Schumm family continued adopting children until they had 10 adoptive children, four biological children and two children under their foster care. The family promoted adoption heavily in the community, with Jonathan Schumm using his position as a Topeka councilman to promote foster care and adoption in the community.

The Schumms were released from jail on bond and have been assigned public defenders.

[Image via A Moment With Mom]