How Could You? Hall of Shame-Jonathan and Allison Schumm UPDATED

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Topeka, Kansas, adoptive parents “Jonathan Robert Schumm, 34, and his wife Allison Nicole, 32, have been accused of physically abusing five children between the ages of five and 16.”

“A Topeka City Councilman and his wife have been arrested and charged after allegedly abusing five of the 16 children in their care.”

“They have each been charged with one felony count of aggravated battery, or in the alternative case, abuse of a child (torture or cruelly beating a child under the age of 18), occurring between October 7 and 11, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

Prosecutors said the Schumms were also each charged with four counts of endangering a child, which reportedly took place on October 31, according to the website.

A City of Topeka spokesperson issued a statement at the time of the arrests stating that arrest warrants had been issued for the couple following an investigation that began earlier this month, WIBW reported.

The statement said the Kansas Department for Children and Families had asked the Topeka Police Department to help in its investigation of reports of physical abuse against children.

After detectives and social workers conducted an investigation into the allegations, they then notified the Shawnee Co. District Attorney’s Office which obtained the arrest warrant.

The couple has four biological children and 10 adopted children, including two sibling groups of five, according to Homeschooling’s Invisible Children.

They were also reportedly fostering two additional children at the time of their arrest last Thursday.

Earlier this month, the councilman, who advocated for adoption, publicly said the family was in the process of adopting a 12th child during a city council meeting on November 3.

‘One of the things I’ve been criticized for is adopting too many children. I don’t think that,’ Jonathan Schumm said.

The couple, who married in May 2004, were awarded an Angels in Adoption Award in 2013, which honors individuals who help children in need of homes.

In Allison Schumm’s blog, where she wrote extensively about the family’s life, she said that the couple began their adoption journey at the end of 2005.

According to Homeschooling’s Invisible Children, their 10 adopted children were adopted between 2006 and 2013.

The Schumm’s biological children were reportedly being homeschooled, while their adopted children, were taken out of public schools so they too could be homeschooled.

In 2013, the Schumms were investigated by the DCF in connection to abuse allegations after a child’s foster family accused them of inflicting bruises on him and potentially abusing other children in the home.

In her blog, Schumm Explosion, she details the first visit from child protective services in connection to the allegations, writing that she took the children to Manhattan to see her family because she did not want ‘to deal with DCF at that point,’ according to the Capital-Journal.

She explained the children involved in the abuse allegation were separated from the rest of the family.

‘Up to this point nobody had told us anything other than you can’t see the children,’ she wrote at the time.

‘At this point we decided to leave all the children who the charges weren’t addressing at my mother in laws house and only bring home the children the DCF wanted to talk to.

‘I was still terrified, but knew that I would need to trust God for His protection of our family.’

She wrote that two DCF employees came to talk to the children involved and then spoke to her and her husband out their discipline techniques. The allegations were ruled unfounded.

Allison Schumm also details their first fostering experience in 2006 when they welcomed a pregnant teenager into their home who lived with them for a little less than two months before they had her placed in different home.

‘Because she decided that violence was the way to get her way, we decided it was safest for everybody involved for her to be placed somewhere other than our home,’ she wrote.

She also details in one post titled ‘Loving the unlovable (Bonding Part 2)’ about punishing some of the children who denied throwing rocks through 12 windows in the building next to their home.

‘At this point I was starting to realize just 24 hours prior we had taken in furious vandalizing thieves and liars,’ she wrote.

‘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,’ she wrote.

‘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 12 40 pound cat litter buckets with rocks and carry them across our 1 acre parking lot of a yard and dump them.

‘They were mad, they were frustrated, they thought it was stupid, but you know what? They learned that my husband and I were serious enough that they never pulled anything to this extent again.’

She then continues by writing about how it would have been easy for them to walk away but that she and her husband wanted to show them they were worth fighting for.

‘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,’ she wrote.

‘Nobody would have blamed her for not wanting to supervise them almost constantly until they started school, but she and her husband decided that if somebody else would have been expected to love them, us sending them to a new foster family would only teach them they could be unlovable and that nobody was willing to fight for them.’

Earlier this year, the councilman ran for city council and in a March voters guide he was quoted saying he was ‘very active in promoting adoption and foster care opportunities,’ according to the Capital-Journal.

The couple made their first court appearance last Friday in Shawnee County District Court, where Jonathan Schumm was appointed counsel from the public defender’s office.

Jonathan Schumm and his wife were booked into the Shawnee County Jail last Thursday evening and posted bond the next day.”

Councilman and wife arrested for torturing children after adopting TWELVE to add to their biological four to boast about being ‘angels of adoption’

[Daily Mail 11/24/15]

REFORM Puzzle Piece

Update: “Allison Schumm, wife of embattled Topeka city councilman Jonathan Schumm, in a series of online postings chronicled the frustrations and challenges of a family struggling to cope with more than a dozen children.

One 2013 post referred to their foster children as “furious vandalizing thieves and liars.”

The posts span several years and provide a window into the family, as mom and dad now face criminal charges of endangering a child and aggravated battery.

The posts also reveal the stresses that faced the Schumms, even as the couple received praise from high places — drawing attention from both Gov. Sam Brownback and Sen. Jerry Moran.

Though Allison at times expressed anger in the postings, at the same time Jonathan acted as an advocate for adoption. As recently as Nov. 3, Jonathan Schumm said publicly the family was in the process of adopting a child and asked others to consider doing the same.

Separately, a same-sex Wichita couple fought the Schumms in court for custody of a foster child.

The Schumms on Thursday evening were booked into the Shawnee County Jail and posted bond Friday. Police arrested the couple in connection with one count each of aggravated battery and — as an alternative — abuse of a child (torture or cruelly beating a child younger than 18), which occurred between Oct. 7 and Oct. 11, as well as four counts of endangering a child, which occurred Oct. 31, a jail official said.

The criminal complaint shows the charges are related to five different minor children. It provides only the birth year of the children. Based on their birth years, one child is about 5 years old, two are either 11 or 12 years old, and the remaining two are 15 or 16 years old.

One child, with a birth year of 2013, is listed as a witness in the criminal complaint but isn’t associated with the criminal charges.

A Topeka Capital-Journal reporter attempted to contact the Schumms at their home Saturday and Tuesday, but no one answered the door. On Tuesday, the house was dark with some curtains drawn closed.

A decorative knocker next to the door read “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Pattern of trouble

On her blog, “Schumm Explosion,” Allison described the difficulty of managing the family’s children, including a visit from the Kansas Department for Children and Families following abuse allegations sometime before March 2014.

According to the post, a foster family accused the Schumms of bruising one boy and potentially abusing other children in the home. On the day of the first visit from DCF officials following the allegations, she took all of the children to Manhattan because she had “no desire to deal with DCF at that point,” she wrote.

During the investigation, the family separated the children involved in the abuse allegation from the rest of the family, she wrote.

Later, DCF officials cleared the Schumms of the abuse allegations. She claimed the allegations stemmed from a foster family that wanted to adopt the children themselves.

In a post from May 2013, Allison described a time when they requested a foster child be removed from their house. She briefly described a fight between her and the child who, according to Allison, elbowed her in the face and kicked her husband.

It is unclear how old the girl was, but according to the post both the girl and Allison were pregnant at the time.

“She and I were both pregnant, hormonal and tired,” Allison wrote.

In the post “Loving the unlovable (Bonding Part 2),” Allison described the family’s early stages of adoption when they first had a group of children in their car. Police questioned the family about rocks in the yard after windows were broken in a neighboring house. The children denied breaking the windows and Allison wrote that they were “furious vandalizing thieves and liars.”

The Schumms then had to decide how to punish the children, she wrote.

“Jonathan and I decided in loving our children they would have to fill 12 40 pound cat litter buckets with rocks and carry them across our 1 acre parking lot of a yard and dump them. They were mad, they were frustrated, they thought it was stupid, but you know what? They learned that my husband and I were serious enough that they never pulled anything to this extent again,” she wrote about the punishment.

Allison, who according to her posts also was adopted, described the stress of handling so many kids.

“I know I have my moments when I can’t wait for Jonathan to get home so that I can go hide in my room, but it’s not because I don’t want to be around my children, it’s because sometimes 14 of them can become a bit overwhelming at times,” she wrote.

Dispute with Wichita couple

The Schumms battled in court at least one other foster family for custody of a child.

Isabella, then an 11-month-old, was the center of a months-long custody case between the Schumms and Tesa and Lisa Rigel Hines, of Wichita. Lisa and Tesa had cared for the girl since she was 5 days-old as a foster child under the impression they would be allowed to adopt her within six months, Tesa said Tuesday. The Schumms, who had adopted Isabella’s half-siblings, learned of Isabella and wanted to adopt her, too.

The battle ended in October 2014, with Isabella being removed from a Wichita day care and taken to Topeka, Tesa said.

“It was a devastating process to go through,” Tesa said.

The couple appealed to the Kansas Supreme Court and sought a restraining order. Both were denied without comment, Tesa said. Tesa and Lisa had married years earlier in another state, but in 2014 their same-sex marriage wasn’t recognized by the state of Kansas. Ultimately, the state decided the Schumms’ home was a better fit for Isabella.

The couple, both with backgrounds in social work, said DCF acted unfairly toward them because they are a same-sex couple.

“It’s politically motivated,” Lisa said. “It’s not in the best interest of a child to move them from a home where she’s adored — a four-bedroom home where she’s the only one — to where she’s one of 14.”

Officials honored Schumms

When Brownback declared November to be Kansas Adoption Month, the Schumms and some of their children were on hand for a November 2011 news conference with the governor to tout adoption. Jonathan told the crowd adoption wasn’t easy, but remained positive about the experience.

“It’s been worth every smile and every tear,” he said.

Moran also praised the Schumms in October 2013 as “vocal advocates for adoption, who strongly believe in the value of family and keeping families together.”

Moran visited with the Schumms while they were in Washington, D.C., for ceremonies related to Angels in Adoption, which honor individuals who help children in need of a home.

Schumm ran for city council earlier this year on a platform of “Honesty and integrity matter.” In a voters guide in March, Jonathan Schumm was quoted as saying he has been “very active in promoting adoption and foster care opportunities.”

Schumm, a former corrections officer, also said he understood the important need for public safety.

“Public safety will be my top priority,” he said in the voters guide. “I will fight to make our streets safe.”

During the Nov. 3 Topeka City Council meeting, Schumm told the audience his family was in the process of adopting a 12th child and he hoped others also would adopt.

“One of the things I’ve been criticized for is adopting too many children. I don’t think that,” he said.

Few details have been released so far about what sparked the investigation that resulted in the Schumms’ arrest. Theresa Freed, a DCF spokeswoman, provided information about how investigations are conducted, but stressed the information was general and not specifically related to the Schumms.

According to information provided by Freed, DCF initiates investigations when a report is made to the Kansas Protection Report Center and the intake is assigned for assessment and investigation. A social worker then is assigned to investigate.

Schumm blogged foster care frustrations, challenges years before charges [CJ Online 11/24/15 by Luke Ranker and Jonathan Shorman]

“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.

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.”

Angels of Adoption arrested councilman and wife charged with torturing some of their 16 children [The Inquisitr 11/25/15 by Tara West]

 

Update 2: “Topeka councilman Jonathan Schumm and his wife, Allison, receive a monthly government subsidy of $4,650 for 15 children who lived in the family’s southeast Topeka home, according to a court document examined Tuesday.

The couple was arrested and charged Nov. 19 with one count each of aggravated battery and, as an alternative, abuse of a child, as well as four counts of endangering a child.

Those crimes are alleged to have occurred between Oct. 7 and Oct. 11 and on Oct. 31.

Jonathan Schumm, 34, was elected in April to the city council, on which he represents a southeast Topeka district.

The $4,650 figure was listed in a document filed by Allison Schumm, who is charged with aiding her husband, in order to receive the services of a court-appointed attorney. A Shawnee County District judge granted her request.

Topeka lawyer Tom Lemon has been hired to defend Jonathan Schumm in the criminal case and subsequent ouster action filed by the Shawnee County District Attorney’s office.

Allison Schumm, 32, listed the monthly income of her husband, who sells life insurance, as $1,100 and her own work in “direct sales” as $500 a month. The financial affidavit also states the family has an 11-year-old car and a large 14-year-old van.

In the section listing the couple’s children, the number first was “16,” but the numeral “5” was written over the “6.” In the past, the Schumms have said they have 16 children, of whom four are biological, two are in foster care, and 10 are adopted. Their ages range from about 1 year old to about 20 years old.

The affidavit said the couple owns an $80,000 house but doesn’t pay rent or make a house payment. Shawnee County appraisal records list the Schumms as the home’s owners.

During his first appearance hearing in the criminal case, Jonathan Schumm stated the children had been removed from the family home.

In other developments, Lemon filed an objection to disclosing information in an affidavit in the criminal case to the public.

The Topeka Capital-Journal filed a request last week seeking the affidavit linked to criminal charges filed against the Schumms.

In a one-paragraph filing, Lemon said he objected “to the production of any portion of the affidavit herein to any media source.”

A Kansas law allows a district court judge to make public a criminal affidavit, which contains details of the alleged crime or crimes.

Citing violence to a 12-year-old son of Jonathan Schumm, District Attorney Chad Taylor and senior assistant district attorney Todd Hiatt filed a civil action Nov. 24 seeking to first suspend Schumm as a city councilman, then oust him from office. According to a court record, choking of the boy allegedly followed a beating in which Jonathan Schumm struck his son with a belt that lacerated his eye and hand.

A hearing in the ouster case is scheduled for Dec. 11 before District Judge Franklin Theis.

In seeking Schumm’s ouster, the district attorney’s office alleges Schumm “willfully engaged in misconduct” while a councilman, court records said.

Between Oct. 7 and Oct. 11, the court record charges, Jonathan Schumm took the boy into a bedroom, forced the child onto a bed face down, then retrieved a leather and metal belt to repeatedly strike the child, “causing lacerations to (the boy’s) eye and hand.”

Prosecutors allege Schumm then rolled the child from his stomach onto his back and began choking him with both hands.

“While he was being strangled, (the boy) heard the defendant say that the next time he strangled (him) he would kill (him),” the record said.

The record alleges that by violating Kansas statutes outlawing aggravated battery and abuse of a child, Jonathan Schumm “violated penal statutes involving moral turpitude and/or willfully engaged in misconduct while in office.” Violating statutes involving moral turpitude is one of four grounds on which a public official can be ousted from office.

The Schumms were released from jail in lieu of bond Nov. 20.”

Schumms, Topeka child abuse defendants, list $4,650 monthly subsidy for kids [The Topeka Capital-Journal 12/1/15 by Steve Fry]

Update 3:”Topeka City Councilman Jonathan Robert Schumm will appear at a preliminary hearing on Feb. 19 on charges tied to alleged abuse of a son.

The hearing was scheduled on Thursday prior to a scheduling docket in afternoon. The defendant will appear before Shawnee County District Judge Richard Anderson.

Schumm, 34, and his wife, Allison Nicole Schumm, 32, both of Topeka, are charged with one count each of aggravated battery and, as an alternative, abuse of a child, as well as four counts of endangering a child.

On Friday, Jonathan Schumm will appear before District Judge Franklin Theis in a civil action filed by the district attorney’s office seeking to oust him from office.

The offenses are alleged to have occurred between Oct. 7 and Oct. 11 and on Oct. 31. The Schumms, who were arrested Nov. 19, were released from jail after bond was posted Nov. 20.

A court record alleges Jonathan Schumm struck his son with a belt that lacerated the son’s eye and hand, then choked the boy.

Allison Schumm was to have had a preliminary hearing on Tuesday but that was postponed after she applied a day earlier for diversion in the case.

In diversion, a defendant applies to the district attorney’s office to enter a program in which he or she agrees to complete a series of requirements. If Allison Schumm agrees to those terms, the charge will be dismissed, and she won’t have a conviction on her record.

The defendant entering diversion usually must be a first-time offender, and diversion is an option only available once. Diversion can include classes dealing with topics tied to the offense and an obligation to not be arrested for new offenses while on diversion.

The district attorney’s office cited the alleged violence to the 12-year-old son when it filed the ouster action on Nov. 24 seeking to suspend Jonathan Schumm from office, then oust him..

In seeking the ouster, the district attorney’s office alleges Schumm “willfully engaged in misconduct” while a councilman, court records said.

Jonathan Schumm has characterized the civil case to strip him of his council seat as “an accusation that he was overly zealous in disciplining his children.”

Since the recent birth of the infant, the Schumms have 17 children, of whom five are biological, two are in foster care, and 10 are adopted.”

Jonathan Schumm, Topeka city councilman, to have preliminary hearing on February 19 [The Topeka capital Journal 1/7/16 by Steve Fry]

Update 4:A search of the Kansas court records finds that Jonathan and Allison had a ” Notice of Diversion Agreement, Allocation of Costs and Request to Stay Proceedings (Agreement for Pretrial Diversion – Criminal With Counsel attached)” on 4/21/16. All other charges were deferred.