Couple behind nationwide surrogacy operation charged in abuse of at least 14 young children

A wealthy Chinese immigrant and his wife were arrested Oct. 6 in connection with the alleged abuse of at least 14 young children born through surrogacy, including infants as young as 2 months old. The couple is at the center of a nationwide surrogacy scandal involving 21 children.

Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, both living in Arcadia, California, each face one count of conspiracy to commit child abuse and one count of accessory after the fact, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office. Xuan also faces one child abuse count and five counts of dissuading a witness, and Zhang faces four counts of dissuading a witness. 

The pair pleaded not guilty at an Oct. 6 arraignment in Pasadena. Prosecutors requested $100 million bail for each defendant, citing flight risk and the seriousness of the allegations, according to the release. A judge set bail at $20 million each, with home confinement and no contact with their children as conditions of release.

Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Teymouri said at an Oct. 6 news conference that the couple has more than 200 personal and 70 corporate bank accounts with annual transfers of $250 million.

“This case is unprecedented. It is horrific,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said during the conference. “The physical abuse, beating, and punishment that these very young children received is despicable.”

An investigation into the couple began in May 2025 after a hospital reported that a 2-month-old boy in the couple’s care had suffered a traumatic head injury. Prosecutors allege that nanny Chunmei Li struck the baby and that Xuan and Zhang waited two days to seek medical treatment, then told hospital staff he had fallen from a bed, according to the district attorney’s release.

Authorities initially arrested the couple that month but did not immediately file charges while investigators continued examining the case, AP News reported. 

After searching the couple’s Arcadia mansion, police removed 15 children from their care and located six others living elsewhere, according to AP News. The children ranged in age from 2 months to 13 years, with most between 1 and 3. 

Investigators examined surveillance recordings from inside the home, where the couple had established three rooms they called learning centers. Children spent several hours a day seated at desks under nannies’ supervision, Hochman said during the news conference.

Hochman said the couple used a network of 32 motion-activated cameras to monitor the children as the nannies subjected the children to physical abuse, including daily punishments and beatings.

“The house could only be described as a house of horrors for these incredibly young children,” Hochman said.

Prosecutors allege that Xuan also participated in the abuse. In one recorded incident, he told a nanny to strike a child harder, and in another video, he repeatedly spanked the child and struck the child’s head with an open hand.

Hochman said the nannies received instructions “not to leave any physical marks on the children.” When police arrived to investigate in May 2025, the couple allegedly told the children to deny the beatings.

Li faces a separate felony child abuse charge, and a warrant for her arrest remains outstanding, according to the district attorney’s office.

Hochman said “there will be a reckoning” for the defendants. Xuan faces up to 17 years and four months in prison, and Zhang faces up to 11 years and eight months if convicted as charged.

The investigation also encompasses the couple’s surrogacy operation, an agency they called Mark Surrogacy that they ran from their home. According to Hochman, the couple recruited women throughout the U.S. to carry children for them. 

Police believe Zhang gave birth to one or two of the 21 children and that surrogates delivered the others, AP News reported. 

According to Hochman, the couple misled prospective surrogates about their ability to conceive and the number of children they already had. Some women were allegedly told the couple had only one child or wanted a “miracle baby.”

Surrogates received between $65,000 and $100,000 per child, according to Courthouse News Service’s account of the criminal complaint.

Hochman said investigators are still examining the couple’s motives and each child’s parentage.

The couple’s attorney, Mitchell Krems, previously told ABC7 that Xuan wanted to raise children who would contribute to society, saying 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.” 

One surrogate, Kayla Elliott, is seeking custody of a baby she delivered for the couple, AP News reported. Hallie Weaver, who gave birth to a baby for the couple in 2024, said she hoped the arrests would lead to stronger protections in the fertility industry. 

“The U.S. needs stronger protections for individuals born through egg donors, sperm donors and surrogates, as well as for the people helping others bring new life,” she said, according to Courthouse News.

There is no comprehensive federal law regulating surrogacy, leaving most rules to the states. California requires separate attorneys for gestational surrogates and intended parents and a signed, notarized agreement before the transfer. 

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Surrogacy has been at the center of several public disputes, including situations in which surrogate mothers say intended parents pressured them to abort because of a child’s sex or possible disability, an illness affecting the surrogate, or a change in the intended parents’ circumstances. 

Critics of surrogacy have also raised concerns about its effects on children, including separation from the women who carried them and the treatment of children as commodities.

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