Oak Harbor police took a toddler into protective custody when police investigating court order violations discovered a “filthy” apartment unfit for children, according to court documents.

Prosecutors charged 40-year-old Dennise N. Leader in Island County Superior Court Feb. 23 with custodial interference in the first degree and domestic violence violation of a court order. She posted $10,000 bail Feb. 7.

A detective with the Oak Harbor Police Department wrote in a report on the case that police were familiar with Leader, whose criminal history includes domestic violence.

“I am also aware that Leader has been the subject of multiple Department of Children, Youth and Families investigations due to the state of her apartment being unfit for children, and that she generally does not answer the door or cooperate with law enforcement or social workers,” the detective wrote.

On Jan. 25, an Oak Harbor man reported that Leader, the mother of his two grade-school-age children, had taken them for five days and refused to return them, according to a report by a detective with the Oak Harbor Police Department. A judge had given him temporary custody of the children, the report states, and granted Leader only supervised visits that did not include overnight stays. In addition, the judge issued a no-contact order barring Leader from contacting the man except to communicate about child care or for third-party child exchanges.

The report states that Leader took her two children and her 2-year-old grandchild for visitation and also went into the man’s apartment without permission, allegedly taking paperwork. After about five days, the man contacted police and reported that Leader refused to bring the children back.

The police checked with the schools and found that one of the children had been absent from school all week but the other was in class. The father and police hurried to the school to pick up the child before Leader got there, the report states. She finally arrived — 50 minutes after the end of school — and she was arrested, the report states.

Leader told the police that she had left the 2-year-old girl alone at the apartment, the detective wrote. The detective went to the apartment and was met with an overwhelming odor of “animal filth and bad food,” the report states.

“The entire apartment was filthy with dirt, feces of unknown origin and cat litter ground into the carpeted areas and feces smeared on the floor in the hallway bathroom,” the detective wrote.

A toilet had no water and was covered with feces, the report states, and a bathtub was used for storage for toys, baskets and other items. A giant pile of clothing blocked the children’s bedroom; Leader said the children had been sleeping in her bed over the prior week because the room was “out of commission,” according to the detective. Dirty diapers had been left on the floor, the report states.

The detective took the 2-year-old, who was found alone in the apartment, into protective custody, according to the police report.

Leader admitted to taking the children but denied the existence of the no-contact order, the report states.