An extremely wealthy Chinese immigrant and his wife amassed a brood of 21 children through a surrogacy scheme and raised them in a “house of horrors”, prosecutors alleged.
Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, were arrested at their sprawling mansion in Arcadia, a city about 20 kilometres northeast of downtown Los Angeles.
The children suffered daily beatings from cruel nannies as the couple watched over a network of surveillance cameras and laughed, according to prosecutors. The couple allegedly recruited women across the country to serve as surrogates, promising them that they were just looking for another child to grow their family.
The couple face several counts of child abuse as well as conspiracy to commit child abuse, accessory after the fact and dissuading a witness, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
“This case is unprecedented. It is horrific,” he said during a morning news conference. “The physical abuse, beating and punishment that these very young children received is despicable.”
In an afternoon court appearance in nearby Pasadena, the couple pleaded not guilty and denied all allegations with a Mandarin interpreter. Prosecutors sought US$100 million bail per person because of the serious nature of the charges and because they are flight risks.
The couple have over 200 personal and 70 corporate bank accounts with annual transfers of US$250 million, Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Teymouri said.
Both were said to have US, Mexican, and Chinese passports, though investigators have not determined if they are all legitimate – prosecutors said they used fake passports to create some of the bank accounts.
Inside the couple's home, investigators found a bank statement showing more than US$70 million in one account along with assets such as antique sculptures and speciality alcohol that added up to nearly US$10 million, according to Teymouri.
LA County Superior Court Judge Kerry White set bail at US$20 million each with home detention and a protective order against visiting their children.
Mitchell Krems, the couple's attorney, called the bail amount “absurd” for the type of charges his clients face and said Zhang's health should be taken into consideration.
Zhang, who appeared in court in a wheelchair, has a rare form of leukaemia and is recovering from a bone marrow transplant, Krems said.
Fifteen children were removed from the opulent home 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 an agency, Mark Surrogacy, that they operated from home and used to hire surrogates throughout the US. But prosecutors said the couple misled the women, telling some that they could not conceive and others that they only had one child and wanted one more to complete their family.
“The house could only be described as a house of horrors for these incredible young children,” Hochman said.
Prosecutor says videos show nannies and Xuan abusing children
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 being violently shaken by a nanny, according to Arcadia police.
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 centres, 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 and at times laughed as the nannies physically abused the children, including daily beatings, he said.
In one video, Xuan is shown entering a room and telling a nanny to strike a child harder, Hochman said, and in another he joins the nanny in hitting the child.
The nannies were allegedly told “not to leave any physical marks on the children”, and when police arrived to investigate in May 2025, the children were told to deny they had been beaten.
After examining the surveillance video, police issued an arrest warrant for Chunmei Li, the nanny seen hurting the 2-month-old infant. However, she fled to Tijuana, Mexico, and then China.
After the children were taken into state custody, Xuan and Zhang were allowed supervised visits. During one such visit, Zhang read to a child and wrote in the book, “Tell them you're happy with me, tell them you want to come home”, lead prosecutor Teymouri said.
Krems said it was “patently false” that Xuan was involved in beating any of the children and blamed all the abuse on the nannies.
“My client, Mr Xuan, intervened swiftly,” Krems said. “He fired the nanny, excised her from the house.”
Prosecutor says motive for discipline remains under investigation
When asked about the couple’s motivation, Hochman said that was part of the investigation, as was the parentage of each child.
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 jewellery or cars, but he is actually spending his resources to help his children become educated”.
After Tuesday's court hearing, he said Xuan and Zhang immigrated from China to exercise their freedom and have as many children as they want.
“If they were white, if they were Elon Musk, and they weren't Chinese, they wouldn't experience this level of scrutiny,” Krems said.
Surrogates say they were misled
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 to be surrogacy-friendly because it has clear laws governing the process. Both sides are required to have lawyers, and there must be a written, notarised contract before an embryo transfer takes place.
At least eight women came forward to say they were aggressively pursued to serve as surrogates. The women, many of them first-time surrogates, said they were given misleading or incomplete information about the couple’s family situation and intentions.
Krems denied that the couple lied to surrogates about their intentions.
The district attorney's office said a federal investigation was ongoing.
The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including the washup from the last night’s election debate, and an NBA star shows up at a French rugby training. (Source: 1News)
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