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

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.

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.

Jonathan Robert Schumm (left), 34, and his wife Allison Nicole (right), 32, have been accused of physically abusing five children between the ages of five and 16

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 couple has four biological children and 10 adopted children, including two sibling groups of five (the couple pictured with their 14 children). They were also fostering two additional children at the time of their arrest last Thursday

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.

A City of Topeka spokesperson issued a statement at the time of the arrests stating that arrest warrants were issued for the Schumms following an investigation that began earlier this month

'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.