Arcadia Couple Charged in Surrogacy Case Held on $20 Million Bail as Prosecutors Detail Alleged Abuse of 21 Children

Since Arcadia police first arrested Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang in May 2025, after a hospital reported that their 2-month-old son had a traumatic head injury, the case has moved slowly. This week it moved fast: formal charges, not-guilty pleas, and a bail fight in which prosecutors laid out new detail about how the children allegedly lived.

The charges

Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced the charges Tuesday. Xuan, 66, faces conspiracy to commit a crime, child abuse, accessory after the fact and five counts of dissuading a witness. Zhang, 39, faces conspiracy, accessory after the fact and four counts of dissuading a witness.

The couple pleaded not guilty in a Pasadena courtroom through a Mandarin interpreter. They were arrested at their Arcadia mansion, a property prosecutors have described as worth about $4 million.

Hochman called the case "unprecedented" and "horrific." He promised a "reckoning."

What prosecutors allege

Fifteen children were removed from the home last year, and six more living elsewhere were later located. They ranged from 2 months to 13 years old, most between 1 and 3. Police believe Zhang gave birth to one or two of them. The rest were carried by surrogates.

Hochman said the couple set up a surrogacy agency, Mark Surrogacy, in 2021 and ran it from the house to recruit women across the country. Prosecutors allege some women were told the couple could not conceive and were begging for help to have a "miracle baby."

Inside the home, prosecutors say, the children were watched by more than 32 cameras and cared for by at least six nannies. Hochman said the couple watched the feeds as nannies beat the children, were told not to leave marks, and sometimes were instructed to strike harder. Prosecutors say the couple laughed at times. Footage allegedly shows nannies carrying children into a space without cameras, where screaming could be heard.

Before police arrived in May 2025, the couple allegedly told the children to deny they had been beaten.

Friday's bail hearing

At Friday's hearing, Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Teymouri told the court the children never saw sunlight, attended no school outside the home and never went to playgrounds or restaurants, according to the Los Angeles Times. She said they sat in makeshift classrooms from sunup to sundown, learning math, Mandarin and English, and were beaten if they did not sit up straight and listen.

Teymouri said that when the Department of Children and Family Services took the children into custody, they were "scared to go to the park because they hadn't been outside." She said she had to mute video she reviewed because of the constant screaming.

She also said officers found the cremated remains of a surrogate-born child who died in Florida. The remains had been sent to the house, and the box was never opened, she said.

The Times reported that Judge Caroline Lugo held the couple in lieu of $20 million bail, agreeing with prosecutors that they are flight risks. Earlier in the week, the court set bail at $20 million each, with home detention and a protective order barring visits with the children. Prosecutors had asked for $100 million per person.

The money and the nanny

Flight risk was the center of the argument. Teymouri told the court the couple holds more than 200 personal and 70 corporate bank accounts, with annual transfers of $250 million. She said investigators found a statement showing more than $70 million in one account, plus antique sculptures and specialty alcohol worth nearly $10 million.

Both are said to hold U.S., Mexican and Chinese passports. Investigators have not determined whether all are legitimate, and prosecutors say fake passports were used to open some of the accounts.

The nanny at the center of the 2025 arrest, Chunmei Li, is charged with child abuse for allegedly hitting the 2-month-old hard enough to cause a brain bleed. Police issued a warrant but could not find her. Teymouri said Li fled to China with the couple's help. That allegation underlies the witness-related and accessory counts.

The defense

The couple's attorney, Mitchell Krems, rejects the picture prosecutors have drawn. He said outside court that the children "love" Xuan and Zhang, and that the couple is being vilified because of anti-Chinese racism. He said the abuse was "all the nannies' doing" and called any allegation that Xuan struck his children "patently false."

Krems called the bail amount "absurd" for these charges. He said both defendants are seriously ill. Xuan appeared in a wheelchair with a neck bandage and intravenous ports, and Zhang also appeared in a wheelchair. Krems said Zhang has a rare form of leukemia and is recovering from a bone marrow transplant, and that Xuan recently had a transplant and has the same type of leukemia.

None of the allegations has been tested at trial. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Special Victims Bureau led the investigation, and FBI agents were at the arrest scene in a role that has not been explained. No trial date has been reported. Whether Li can be brought back from China to face her own charge is also unresolved.