A California couple at the center of a surrogacy scandal was arrested Tuesday. A law enforcement source confirmed the arrests to CBS News shortly before officials held a news conference to announce the latest developments.
Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang are charged with several counts, including conspiracy to commit child abuse and dissuading a witness, Los Angeles District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman said. He is asking for bail set at $100 million.
The couple made national headlines last year after authorities raided their Arcadia mansion in July 2025 and took 21 children, mostly born to surrogate motherplaced in state custody.
Tuesday morning, detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department arrested the couple at their residence. They were transported to the Pasadena courthouse where they are currently being arraigned, Sheriff Robert Luna said.
“What was publicly filed in the complaint today is incredibly disturbing. It involves horrific punishments, beatings and child abuse,” Hochman said at the news conference.
Authorities said the investigation began in May 2025, when Zhang brought a 2-month-old boy to the hospital with a head injury.
“She appeared to lie to hospital staff about how the injury was sustained and hospital staff notified law enforcement authorities,” Luna said, adding that when Arcadia police went to the home, “what they found raised even more serious concerns.”
The prosecutor said Tuesday that the children sat for hours a day in three different rooms called “Learning Centers” under the supervision of various nannies at the couple’s home, which he called a “house of horrors.” The couple had a system of 32 motion-activated cameras in different rooms of the Arcadia mansion, he said. Images from these cameras were broadcast on a television near their office that the couple used to monitor the discipline given by the nannies.
Hochman said the nannies were filmed spanking, slapping or hitting the children. A nanny, Chunmei Li, allegedly hit the 2-month-old baby in the head, the prosecutor said. A $105,000 arrest warrant for her had already been issued, but she remains at large, he said.
Xuan’s lawyer, Mitchell Krems, said: “My client is innocent. It was the nanny who fled. He is being targeted because he exercised his constitutional right to have a large family.”
Melissa Brisman, an attorney for two of the surrogates involved in the case, told CBS News, “It’s wonderful news that people will be held accountable for their actions and there will be consequences if you abuse the surrogacy system.”
Brisman added that it is important that surrogacy remains an option for those who need help becoming parents, but said there must “be adequate protections for those who enter the surrogacy system.”
“We need to make sure bad actors aren’t ruining other people’s lives,” she said.
A Los Angeles FBI spokesperson confirmed that the FBI served a search warrant at the home, separate from a search conducted by the sheriff’s department.
A neighbor said helicopters and police could be seen at their mansion and the entire neighborhood was taped off.
In early September, the Arcadia Police Department requested assistance from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, officials said Tuesday.
“We will continue to work together to achieve justice for the 21 children involved in this case,” Luna said.
Maria Castellanos, a surrogate mother who carried two children for Zhang and Xuan, said after learning of their arrest: “I’m angry that everyone involved couldn’t stop this so the kids wouldn’t go through everything they went through. I’m just angry at the whole process, all of it. It’s not just them.”
“I trusted Silvia,” she said.
Gn usa
