UPDATE May 4, 2016: Shawnee County Sheriff's Office releases statement on arrest.

The matriarch of the Sharp Family Singers who performed at militant confrontations in Nevada and Oregon has been charged with assaulting police officers in Kansas and has lost seven children to state custody.

Odalis Sharp, 46, of Auburn, Kansas, faces a felony charge of interfering with law enforcement and two misdemeanor counts of battery of a law enforcement officer, according to Shawnee County officials in Topeka. She was arrested at her home last Friday and released on bail the following day.

In an interview Tuesday, Sharp said state officials have custody of seven of her 10 children. She said she didn't know the whereabouts of her other three, including 18-year-old Victoria Sharp. The teenager was riding with Robert "LaVoy" Finicum last January when he was shot and killed while trying to evade police north of Burns.

The Shawnee County Sheriff's Office confirmed Odalis Sharp's arrest, saying in a statement that deputies responded to allegations of abuse.

"Individuals in the household reported on-going abuse at the residence," the statement said, without indentifying those involved. "While at the residence, a vehicle arrived on scene. The passenger in the vehicle, Odalis Sharp, 46, of Auburn, became resistive and eventually her actions resulted in her arrest."

Sharp told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she was arrested after arriving home to find police there. She said they were there to take custody of her youngest child, who was the only child still living with Sharp at the time.

She said police handcuffed her and wouldn't answer whether they had a warrant.

"I tried to kick the officer," Sharp said. "In fact, I kicked her in the leg."

Sharp, who is divorced, said she she expected a court hearing Wednesday in Kansas on the status of her children.

"They kidnapped my children," she said.

Officials at the Kansas Department for Children and Families said they couldn't comment on confidential juvenile matters.

Sharp has faced scrutiny before from state child welfare officials when her 15-year-old son ran away from home in 2011 and claimed to authorities he was abused.

The son told police that "as a form of discipline, Odalis had placed him on a bread and water diet for the past 2 weeks," said a Kansas Court of Appeals opinion issued last October. Odalis Sharp conceded that, saying she got the idea "from an encyclopedia which indicated that in the early 1900s the prison system fed inmates this diet," the court ruling said.

A pastor familiar with the family told police that "home life is very toxic" at the Sharps, the ruling said.

The court rejected Odalis Sharp's appeal of a state finding of abuse, concluding that "substantial competent evidence supports the agency findings of abuse and neglect."

Document: Kansas court ruling

State officials wouldn't comment on the result of that ruling.

Sharp and her children sang two years ago in Nevada during the standoff between the supporters of rancher Cliven Bundy and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

In Oregon, the family was the opening act in a program at the refuge headquarters on Jan. 23, three days before Finicum was shot. They performed before a news conference called to introduce a New Mexico rancher who claimed he was ending his federal grazing arrangement. He proved to be an ex-convict with a small cattle operation.

The following Tuesday, Sharp loaded her family into a van to travel to a community meeting 100 miles north the refuge. They left ahead of a two-vehicle convoy carrying Ammon E. Bundy, 40, the occupation leader, his brother, Ryan, Finicum and others. The leaders were scheduled to speak at the John Day meeting.

Victoria Sharp was late getting ready and missed the family's van and instead joined passengers in Finicum's truck, according to Shawna Cox, who also rode with Finicum and now faces federal charges related to the refuge takeover.

State police stopped the Jeep carrying Ammon Bundy and Finicum's pickup between Burns and John Day. Finicum then drove off and crashed into a snow bank. State police shot him when he reached for a concealed weapon as they ordered his surrender, investigators said. Victoria Sharp was taken into custody but later released without charges. Her family had reached John Day and performed a mournful session at the meeting after organizers announced there had been a shooting and arrests.

Odalis Sharp took her family to Portland a month later, singing in the hallway outside a federal courtroom where the refuge occupiers were scheduled to appear.

-- Les Zaitz

@leszaitz