LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California couple has been arrested on child abuse charges following an investigation into a surrogacy scheme involving at least 21 children ranging in age from a few months to 13 years, authorities said Tuesday.
Guojun Xuan, 66, and his wife, Silvia Zhang, 39, face several counts of child abuse, as well as conspiracy to commit child abuse, accessory after the fact, and dissuading a witness, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said.
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“This case is unprecedented. It is horrific,” Hochman said during a news conference Tuesday morning. “The physical abuse, beating and punishment that these very young children received is despicable.”
Prosecutors are seeking $100 million bail for the couple because of the serious nature of the charges and because they are flight risks, Hochman said. They were scheduled to be arraigned at the Pasadena courthouse later Tuesday.
Fifteen children were removed from the couple’s opulent home in Arcadia last year after an allegation of abuse, and another six living elsewhere were also located. They ranged in age from 2 months to 13 years, with most between 1 and 3. Police believe Zhang gave birth to one or two of the children while the rest were carried and delivered by surrogates.
Hochman said the couple set up a surrogacy agency that they operated from their home and used that agency to hire surrogates throughout the U.S.
“The house could only be described as a house of horrors for these incredible young children,” Hochman said.
Zhang and Xuan were first arrested in May 2025 after a hospital reported that their 2-month-old infant had a traumatic head injury, the result of a nanny at the home violently shaking the baby, according to Arcadia police.
Arcadia police did not file charges at the time, saying they needed to complete the investigation.
Hochman said the couple set up three rooms they called learning centers, where the children spent several hours a day sitting at desks under the supervision of nannies.
Through an extensive surveillance system including motion-activated cameras, the couple watched as the nannies subjected the children to physical abuse including daily beatings, he said.
In one video, Xuan enters one of the rooms and tells a nanny to strike a child harder, and in another he joins the nanny in hitting the child, Hochman said.
He said the nannies were told “not to leave any physical marks on the children,” and when police arrived to investigate in May 2025, the couple told the children to deny they had been beaten.
After examining the surveillance footage, police issued an arrest warrant for Chunmei Li, the nanny seen hurting the 2-month-old infant, but she could not be found.
Hochman said “there will be a reckoning” for the defendants, one of whom faces more than 17 years in prison if convicted.
When asked about the couple’s motivation, Hochman said that was part of the ongoing investigation, as was the parentage of each child.
Mitchell Krems, Xuan’s attorney, previously told ABC7 that Xuan’s goal was to raise children who become productive adults.
“The reason he has all these children is because he wants them to contribute to society. He is not a man who is self-indulgent,” Krems said. “Some who are wealthy might spend on jewelry or cars, but he is actually spending his resources to help his children become educated so that they can be the philosophers, the physicians, the researchers and the inventors that help society.”
Krems did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on Tuesday’s arrests.
Surrogacy is an arrangement in which a woman agrees to carry and deliver a child for another person or couple, often after an embryo transfer.
There is no comprehensive federal law regulating surrogacy, leaving most rules to the states.
California is considered a “surrogacy-friendly state” because it has clear laws governing the process. Both sides are required to have lawyers, and there must be a written, notarized contract before an embryo transfer takes place.
Investigators have said they were looking into whether the couple had misled surrogates around the country and that at least eight women came forward to say they were aggressively pursued by the couple to serve as surrogates.
The women, many of whom were first-time surrogates, say they were given misleading or incomplete information about the couple’s family situation and intentions.
At least one, Kayla Elliott, is now trying to get custody of a baby she birthed for the couple.
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Marcelo reported from New York City.
