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Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced charges against Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang after investigators determined the couple had directed nannies to carry out repeated physical abuse on young children living in their home. According to Hochman, who spoke at a Tuesday press briefing, the pair monitored the abuse through a network of 32 motion-activated cameras that fed live footage to a screen in their office. A criminal complaint alleges that Xuan once instructed a nanny to strike a child harder before joining in the punishment by hitting the child’s head and buttocks while lifting the infant by one arm. The district attorney called the scale of the alleged abuse unprecedented and said the children, some only two months old, endured daily beatings and punishments in designated learning centers within the residence.
The investigation began in May 2025 when Zhang brought a two-month-old boy to a hospital with a serious head injury, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Hospital records show Zhang claimed the infant had fallen from a bed, but medical staff suspected non-accidental trauma consistent with shaking, ABC News reported. One nanny, identified in the complaint as Chunmei Li, faces separate child abuse charges and is believed to have fled the country. Officials later removed 15 children from the Arcadia property, with six additional children linked to the couple located at other locations, according to multiple law enforcement accounts.
Xuan, 66, and Zhang, 39, operated a surrogacy agency known as Mark Surrogacy Investment or Future Spring Surrogacy from their 10,000-square-foot mansion, a criminal complaint obtained by CBS News states. The pair allegedly recruited women across the United States and provided false information to at least two surrogates by claiming Zhang struggled with infertility, according to prosecutors. By May 2025 the couple maintained a spreadsheet tracking 21 children, 14 of whom were born through surrogates and subjected to the alleged abuse while living at the home, Hochman told reporters. The children typically spent several hours each day in makeshift classrooms under nanny supervision, where surveillance captured the incidents.
A CBS News investigation into the surrogacy sector released earlier in 2026 found that the United States remains the only developed nation permitting commercial surrogacy without uniform national standards. The report estimated up to 10,000 surrogate births occur annually across the country, with California serving as the primary hub due to its established legal framework that allows pre-birth parentage orders. According to a SurroAdvisor 2026 industry analysis, the sector reached a market value of $28.9 billion that year and continues to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 14.2 percent. The investigation highlighted how the absence of mandatory background checks for intended parents in many jurisdictions creates vulnerabilities that this case appears to illustrate.
Attorney Melissa Brisman, who represents two of the surrogates involved, told CBS News that the charges mark an important step toward accountability. Brisman stated, “This is wonderful news that people will be held responsible for their actions and there will be consequences if you abuse the surrogacy system.” The couple’s attorney, Mitchell Krems, described the allegations as a mischaracterization of the evidence in comments reported by KESQ. Xuan and Zhang pleaded not guilty during their Tuesday afternoon arraignment in Pasadena Superior Court, where a judge set bail at $20 million for each defendant after prosecutors had requested $100 million, according to court coverage by The Seattle Times.
If convicted on all counts, Xuan could face up to 17 years and four months in state prison while Zhang faces a maximum of 11 years and eight months, a Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office assessment found. The case has prompted renewed scrutiny of surrogacy practices, building on earlier 2025 reporting by The Associated Press that first raised questions about the couple’s rapid accumulation of children through multiple surrogates nationwide. Investigators continue to examine the full scope of the surrogacy operation and any additional children born since the initial removals, Hochman indicated during the briefing.
