The arrest this week of a California couple on conspiracy and child abuse charges raised crucial questions about the future of the 21 young children at the center of the case, most of them born to surrogate motherwho were evicted from the couple’s Arcadia mansion and other properties.
It’s been over a year since authorities raided Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang’s 10,000 square foot mansion in July 2025, and the children were placed in state custody.
Prosecutors on Tuesday presented a picture of the alleged abuse the children suffered at the property, with the prosecutor calling the mansion a “house of horrors”.
Xuan and Zhang are accused of conspiring to subject 15 of the 16 children living in their Arcadia home — at least 14 of whom were born to surrogate mothers, the prosecutor said — to repeated physical abuse.
Arcadia Police Department 
The complaint detailed allegations that Zhang and Xuan observed and encouraged the abuse of children, mostly under the age of 4, by various nannies. The parents monitored the alleged abuse through a system of 32 cameras in the home, prosecutors say.
In one case, Xuan entered a room in the mansion called a “learning center” and saw a nanny hitting a child, according to the complaint. He then allegedly asked the nanny to hit the child harder, punched him in the head with his bare hands and lifted him into the air with one arm, according to the complaint.
Xuan and Zhang, who have pleaded not guilty, are each being held on $20 million bail. Xuan’s lawyer, Mitchell Krems, said Tuesday that his client was innocent and “was targeted for exercising his constitutional right to have a large family.”
Although the allegations made by the prosecutor were harrowing, nothing was said about the fate of the children.
“If it’s bad news, then I don’t want to know.”
When contacted by CBS News after the parents’ arrest, some of the surrogates involved in the case wondered what would happen to the children, while others said they didn’t want news of the babies if it upset them.
Vanity McGoveran, a surrogate mother who gave birth to a baby girl in March 2024, felt relieved when she learned of the arrest. “Finally,” she said. McGoveran said she was reluctant to learn more about what happened to the child she handed over to the couple.
“Not if it’s bad news, then I don’t want to know,” she said.
McGoveran said she had no knowledge of what happened to the baby. But, according to Nicol Stolar-Peterson, a clinical social worker and child abuse investigator, legal proceedings are required within 72 hours of a California child’s initial removal from a home.
The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, which oversees local child welfare, likely immediately worked to identify appropriate placement locations for the children. When possible, DCFS places the child with a relative, extended family member, or friend capable of caring for them. If this is not possible, the child may be sent to live with an adoptive parent or in a community living space.
“We have adoptive parents, caregivers and others available to have this child,” said Christina Paddock, an associate professor of social work at the University of Southern California.
Paddock said the child welfare system then looks for ways to grant permanent residency to the children.
“We always want to move toward that permanency, that they have a permanent place to live and grow, and growing up in a healthy, safe environment is really, you know, the priority,” Paddock said.
According to The New Yorker’s “In the Dark” podcast series, Zhang and Xuan’s parental rights were not terminated during the investigation.
An attorney representing the children declined to comment, citing privacy concerns.
Who is best able to take care of the children?
For surrogates across the country who carried children for Zhang and Xuan, this case raised the question of whether they should be able to care for a child who was taken from his intended parents.
Maria Castellanos had two babies as a surrogate for the couple, a boy in 2022 and a girl in 2024. Zhang promised Castellanos she could see them once a year, but went back on her word, Castellanos said. After the children were removed from the home, Castellanos desperately called lawyers to see if she could take the children in, but said no one would help her. She now becomes a foster parent, hoping to help care for the children she was carrying.
“I’m in the process of becoming a foster parent, which is a more difficult process to do than becoming a surrogate or intended parent,” Castellanos said.
There is a need for more foster parents in California, according to Paddock, who said there is currently a shortage. Surrogate mothers outside of California have also sought custody of the children they were carrying for the couple.
At least five more babies born to surrogate mothers in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia after all 21 children were removed last year. These children were also placed in state custody in their respective states. (Neither of these children are included in the criminal charges filed by the Los Angeles County district attorney.)
Zhang and Xuan filed lawsuits against the surrogate mothers in an attempt to regain custody of the babies. The attorney for one of the surrogates, Melissa Epps, said her client was “grateful” for the California prosecutor’s efforts.
“The 1-year-old that Xuan and Zhang pursued for our client remains safe and happy in Virginia, and we are confident that she will continue to do so,” said attorney Pamela DeCamp.
Scott Altman, a law professor at the University of Southern California who specializes in family law and jurisprudence, told CBS News two scenarios in which surrogate mothers could care for the children they gave birth to. The first is that surrogates could try to overturn the agreements and overturn the judgment, he said. The other, he said, would be for surrogates to seek to become foster parents and eventually adopt, as Castellanos is trying to do.
Altman said the first scenario was definitely “an uphill battle,” and while he doesn’t think it’s impossible, it would be difficult. Surrogate mothers generally do not have parental rights and must go through a long process to become adoptive parents.
But nonetheless, Altman added, surrogates could try to become adoptive parents.
“I don’t see any reason why surrogates shouldn’t apply to foster these children,” Altman said. “If the indicted couple’s parental rights are ultimately terminated, surrogate mothers may seek to adopt the children to whom they gave birth.”
Altman added that surrogates interested in caring for children as adoptive parents must formally request to be matched with them, noting, “It seems reasonable that the state might give them some priority in this process.” »
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