California couple charged with abusing surrogate-born children held on $20 million bail

Right · 2Guojun Xuan, 66, and his wife Silvia Zhang, 39, were arrested and charged over alleged abuse of children born to surrogates at their multimillion-dollar home in Arcadia, California. 1 2 Right · 1Authorities said the couple ran their own surrogacy agency, Future Spring Surrogacy, from the home, recruiting surrogates and paying them tens of thousands of dollars; at least eight surrogates reported aggressive tactics and false statements about the family's living situation, officials said. 1 Right · 2Fox News reported that more than a dozen children, some as young as 2 months old, were allegedly abused, while the New York Post, citing a court hearing, put the number of children at 21. 1 2

Right · 1Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called the alleged abuse "appalling and revolting" and said the children were "systematically beaten and punished if they did not do what they were told." 1 Right · 1At a bail hearing on Friday, Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Teymouri said the children were hidden from the outside world, did not attend school or go to playgrounds or restaurants, and sat in "makeshift classrooms" from sunup to sundown learning math, Mandarin and English, with beatings for those who did not pay attention. The New York Post attributed these details to the Los Angeles Times. 2 Right · 1Teymouri said prosecutors have video of Xuan sweeping a flashlight over sleeping children's beds and beating any child who was awake, and that police found the cremated remains of a surrogate child who died in Florida, which the couple never opened. Children taken into custody by the Department of Children and Family Services last year were reportedly scared to go to the park. 2

Right · 1Xuan was charged with conspiracy to commit a crime, child abuse and accessory after the fact, plus five counts of dissuading a witness; Zhang was charged with conspiracy, accessory after the fact and four counts of dissuading a witness. 2 Right · 1Judge Caroline Lugo of Los Angeles County Superior Court held the couple on $20 million bail, agreeing with prosecutors that they were a flight risk. Teymouri said the couple's nanny, Chunmei Li, who was charged with child abuse for hitting a child so hard that the child needed hospital treatment for brain bleeding, fled to China with their help. 2 Right · 1Xuan's attorney, Mitchell Krems, said his client has no prior convictions, blamed the abuse on nannies, said the couple are victims of anti-Chinese sentiment, and argued for release because of leukemia treatment that has left Xuan in a wheelchair. Zhang's attorney said the children were well nourished and educated and that there were no burn marks, cages, dog collars or belt abuse. 2

Right · 1Fox News used the case to examine surrogacy regulation: it noted California does not require a licence to open a surrogacy agency and has no comprehensive regulatory framework, and quoted Kallie Fell of the Center for Bioethics and Culture, who opposes commercial surrogacy, calling the state the "wild, Wild West" and urging an end to international surrogacy. 1 Right · 1Fox also cited a 2024 Heritage Foundation report saying foreign nationals, many from China, increasingly use American surrogates, which can secure birthright citizenship for the children because cross-border surrogacy is not federally regulated. 1