A California couple faces multiple felony charges in what prosecutors called an unprecedented case of child abuse involving over a dozen children born via surrogacy in their Los Angeles County mansion.
Husband-and-wife Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, were arrested at their Arcadia residence on Tuesday following a 17-month investigation, according to the Los Angeles County sheriff.
Prosecutors allege that the couple ran a “house of horrors” where multiple live-in nannies physically abused at least 15 children — including 14 born via surrogacy — at their encouragement. Some were as young as 2 months old at the time, according to prosecutors.
The two allegedly watched the punishment through a system of 32 motion-activated cameras inside the mansion, at times laughing, according to prosecutors. Xuan is also accused of committing child abuse, with prosecutors alleging that he instructed a nanny to strike one of the children harder before joining in and repeatedly striking the child’s bare buttocks and head.
“This case is unprecedented, it is horrific, and the physical abuse, beating and punishment that these very young children received is despicable,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said at a press briefing Tuesday announcing the arrests and charges against the parents.
The couple are both charged with conspiracy to commit child abuse, according to the complaint. Xuan is also charged with child abuse under circumstances or conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death, according to the complaint.
One of the couple’s nannies was previously charged with child abuse in connection with the case and has an active warrant for her arrest, prosecutors said.
An attorney for Xuan denied the allegations against his client.
“My client is innocent,” the husband’s attorney, Mitchell Krems, said in a statement. “It is the nanny’s wrongdoing who went on the run. He is being targeted for exercising his constitutional right to have a large family.”
Krems also denied the allegations against Zhang while speaking with reporters after appearing in court Tuesday on behalf of her attorney and claimed that the two are being treated unfairly.
The investigation began in May 2025, when Zhang brought one of the children — a 2-month-old boy — to the hospital for a head injury, according to Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.
“She appeared to be untruthful with hospital staff about how the injury was sustained, and the hospital staff notified law enforcement authorities,” Luna said during the press briefing.
Before Arcadia police responded to their home on May 7, 2025, Xuan and Zhang allegedly instructed some of the children to deny they had been beaten, and Zhang allegedly told a nanny to hide sticks used to strike the children, according to the complaint.
Investigators found 14 children born via surrogates between the ages of 2 months and approximately 4 to 5 years old living at the Arcadia house at the time, along with two other children, according to Hochman. There were also an additional five children who were part of the “initial surrogacy operation,” he said. Prosecutors did not say where those children were at the time.
The couple had set up “learning centers” in three rooms in the mansion, where children spent hours each day seated at desks while being supervised by the nannies, according to Hochman. Zhang maintained a spreadsheet to track the 21 children, and she and her husband would watch live CCTV feeds from throughout their residence on a large television screen in their shared office, according to the complaint.
“Each one of these defendants monitored the nannies’ discipline of the children that were happening in the three learning centers. And what was going on, has been alleged in the complaint of that discipline, is nothing short of absolute physical abuse, beatings, and punishment on a daily basis,” Hochman said.
The cameras allegedly captured some of the nannies spanking, slapping or hitting the children between April 27, 2025, and May 7, 2025, according to prosecutors. In one instance cited in the complaint, Xuan was allegedly captured beating a child “with sufficient force that the child’s body lurched in alternating directions with the blows.”
One room within their residence did not have a camera, according to the complaint, which alleged that “one or more uncharged coconspirator nannies were captured on surveillance carrying children into this room, where the children could be heard screaming from inside.”
In the incident that led to the investigation, on May 4, 2025, one of the nannies — Chunmei Li — allegedly struck a 2-month-old boy named Walter in the head, according to the complaint. Two days later, Zhang brought the baby to a hospital, where she allegedly misrepresented to the hospital staff that he had sustained the head injury by falling off a bed the day before, according to the complaint.
Li was previously charged with one felony count of child abuse under conditions likely to cause great bodily injury or death and remains at large, Hochman said. Xuan and Zhang both face an additional charge of accessory after the fact, which alleges that they harbored, concealed and aided Li to prevent her arrest.
The couple was also charged with multiple counts of preventing or dissuading a witness or victim from reporting a crime, according to the complaint.
They both pleaded not guilty during their arraignment Tuesday afternoon and denied all allegations. Their bail was set at $20 million for each defendant.
Prosecutors had requested $100 million bail for each, which Hochman said was “in recognition of both the flight risk potential in this case, as well as the serious nature of these charges and the defendant’s means as well.”
If convicted, they face maximum prison sentences of 17 years and four months for Xuan and 11 years and eight months for Zhang, prosecutors said. Li faces up to 12 years if convicted.
No other nannies have been charged in the case.
The children have been under the care of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services since May 2025, Hochman said. The parentage of and motivation for having the surrogate children is part of the ongoing investigation, he said.
According to the complaint, the couple founded a surrogacy company in 2021 that they operated from their Arcadia residence to hire surrogates throughout the United States. To obtain children through surrogacy, the couple allegedly provided false information to prospective and actual surrogates, according to prosecutors. Among the allegations, one surrogate was told that Zhang was a single mother struggling to conceive, while another was told the couple had only one daughter, according to the complaint.
Krems told ABC News Los Angeles station KABC that Xuan wanted to have so many children out of a sense of “altruism.”
“The reason he has all these children is because he wants them to contribute to society. He is not a man who is self-indulgent. Some who are wealthy might spend on jewelry or cars, but 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,” Krems told KABC.
Krems told KABC that any accusation that his client is abusive “is categorically false.”
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