29.10.2026 23:01
In the US state of California, a couple whose wealth is reported to exceed $100 million is on trial on charges of abusing 14 children born through surrogacy. Prosecutors allege that children between the ages of 6 months and 3 years were beaten every day in a mansion equipped with 32 cameras. The couple, who deny the charges, had bail set at $20 million each.
In May 2025, a two-month-old baby named Walter was hospitalized with head trauma in Arcadia, an affluent suburb in the US state of California. According to a police report, a woman claiming to be the baby's mother said the baby had accidentally fallen from the bed. However, a doctor noted that Walter's condition more closely resembled injuries from a car accident or shaking and thought the situation was not normal.
On suspicion of child abuse, police searched the grand mansion where Walter lived and briefly detained his parents, Guojun Xuan (66) and Silvia Zhang (39).
Prosecutors said what they found "could only be described as a house of horrors": 14 children between six months and three years old, born through surrogacy, were being beaten every day in a maze equipped with cameras.
As authorities later discovered, the mansion's address was also registered to a surrogacy agency that the couple ran and used to find surrogate mothers.
This October, the couple was detained again and charged with conspiracy to commit child abuse. The couple denies the charges and remains in custody.
Bail was set at $20 million each. If convicted, Xuan could face up to 17 years and four months in prison, and Zhang up to 11 years and eight months.
HORROR IN A MANSION WITH 32 CAMERAS
The couple moved into the Arcadia mansion in April 2021. According to online listings, the 929-square-meter mansion sold for $3.3 million the same year. The mansion has nine bedrooms, 11 bathrooms, and a heated pool.
This affluent suburb on the east side of Los Angeles is called "the Chinese Beverly Hills" by local media. According to the latest US census, nearly 60% of its population is Asian, predominantly Chinese. Household incomes there are much higher than those of most families in the US. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said at an October press conference following the charges, "This home can only be described as a house of horrors for these incredibly young children brought here through the surrogacy process."
According to the complaint, 32 cameras were installed in the mansion. The footage showed small children sitting next to tables for hours. There was no camera in one room, but other cameras recorded caregivers carrying the children into this room, and the children's screams could be heard from the room.
Prosecutors alleged that one of the caregivers, Chunmei Li, caused baby Walter's injuries and charged her with child abuse likely to cause great bodily injury or death. Li is still at large and has not yet been taken into custody.
The couple's lawyer, Mitchell Krems, told CBS News, the BBC's US news partner, that based on the evidence he had reviewed, the charge was a "misinterpretation."
Krems said his client Xuan is innocent.
According to CBS News, the lawyer said, "He is being targeted because he has a large family, which is his constitutional right."
SURROGATES WERE NOT TOLD THE TRUTH
The United States has become one of the world's leading countries for surrogacy, which means a woman giving birth to another person's child.
A 2024 study on US surrogacy data found that between 2014 and 2020, about one third of parents seeking to have children came from outside the country.
Most international clients come from China, where surrogacy is banned. Chinese clients make up about 42% of foreign parents seeking to have children.
The United States offers assisted reproductive technology services that are not easily accessible in China. Single women and LGBTQ individuals often face barriers in accessing IVF and egg freezing. There are also couples who were restricted by China's decades-long One-Child Policy and who, when the policy ended in 2016, were physically unable to carry a baby; this leads some to pursue surrogacy abroad.
According to court documents, the surrogate mothers who gave birth for Xuan and Zhang did not initially view their requests to have a baby through surrogacy with much suspicion.
Several surrogates were recruited through an agency called "Mark Surrogacy." Although an agency is generally seen as an independent third party, it turned out that Mark Surrogacy was run by the couple. According to two lawsuits filed against the couple by some surrogates, there were times when this information was not shared with the surrogates.
In corporate records, Silvia Zhang is listed as a manager of Mark Surrogacy, and the same document lists their Arcadia mansion as the company's address. At an October 16 hearing, Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Cameron Teymouri also told the judge that through the surrogacy agency the couple ran from their home, no one other than the couple was matched with a surrogate.
One of the surrogates, Tronderrica James, filed a civil damages lawsuit against the couple in 2025, alleging fraud and intentional misrepresentation, among other claims.
James alleged that Zhang did not initially disclose her ties to Mark Surrogacy and that she would not have agreed if she had known the true nature of the arrangement. James did not respond to the BBC's interview request. The defendants later filed a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the woman lacked sufficient grounds to sue. The case is still ongoing.
Five more women — Stacy Raelyn King, Evelyn Senolos Areja, Kayla Elliott, Hallie Hernandez, and Vanity McGoveran — claimed in a separate lawsuit filed against Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang in August that they had similar experiences. The lawsuit alleged that Zhang did not disclose the couple's ties to the agency or the number of children they had.
In the plaintiffs' complaint, it was alleged, "Each plaintiff was told that she was the only woman carrying the couple's child and that she was helping a family have a single, precious child."
The couple had also previously used another surrogacy agency based in California called Babytree Surrogacy. Babytree's founder, Patrick Yu, told the BBC that Xuan contacted them in 2018.
In his statement to the BBC, Yu said Xuan told him he wanted to build a large family. They helped Xuan meet several surrogates, and these women gave birth to at least four babies.
Yu said, "I realized he had so many children when I saw in the first news reports that an investigation had been launched into him. We immediately stopped working with him."
However, one of the women he helped match in 2024 was already pregnant when news of Walter's injuries emerged in May 2025.
Police had taken 21 children into protective custody while investigating child abuse allegations.
In a statement to the BBC, Yu said he arranged a meeting with the couple and the surrogate mother, who was newly pregnant at the time.
He said the couple appeared very confident and assured the surrogate mother that they treated the children well. The woman decided to continue the pregnancy and gave birth to a baby in early 2026.
According to Dr. Liang Yu, vice chair of the Chinese Special Interest Group of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine and director of the Reproductive Clinical Sciences Program at Old Dominion University, there is no legal limit on the number of children a couple seeking children can have through surrogacy, and disclosure of such information is not mandatory.
Liang said some agencies may have their own conditions, but this is not a legal requirement. In addition, a couple can work with several different agencies at the same time without fully disclosing all their information to each.
“This creates an area of ambiguity in laws and industry regulations.”
Liang added that in this gray area he has seen many examples involving not only Chinese clients but also wealthy clients. However, due to privacy laws and confidentiality agreements signed with doctors and fertility clinics, most of these are not made public.
“In other words, this kind of behavior (such as Xuan’s) is not unusual.”
The BBC contacted lawyers for Xuan and Zhang regarding the allegations. Mitchell Krems, who represents both, did not respond. Zhang’s lawyer, Matt Koohanim, said the case would be handled through the proper legal channels.
THEIR WEALTH EXCEEDS $100 MILLION
At the October 16 hearing, Deputy District Attorney MacKenzie Cameron Teymouri told the judge that in 2025 the couple’s net worth exceeded $100 million.
Teymouri added that Xuan had three passports: Mexican, Chinese and US.
According to local Chinese media, Xuan was born in 1959 in Zhejiang Province in eastern China. At 18, he started work as an accountant at a state-owned grocery company in Urumqi. In 1997, he became a deputy in the Urumqi People’s Congress, and later, in 2008, he was elected a deputy in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region. This position sits in the provincial-level legislature and is similar to a state representative in the US.
After moving to the US, he continued his activities in public life. He became president of the US Xinjiang Chamber of Commerce and vice president of the “China America Federation,” and from 2019 began taking part in public events.
In a photo seen by the BBC, Xuan is shown holding hands with former Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang at an event in 2022. During Wang’s mayoral election campaign that year, Xuan donated $4,900 through a company registered in his name. Wang resigned as mayor of Arcadia in May after the US Department of Justice charged her with acting illegally as an agent of China. She pleaded guilty.
Little is known about Zhang, who works as a real estate agent. Xuan and Zhang never married. According to court documents, Zhang divorced another person to whom Zhang was married in 2022.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE 26 CHILDREN?
At a hearing earlier this month, Teymouri told the judge that there were 26 children connected to this family.
According to the complaint, Zhang kept records of a total of 21 children as of May 2025. These children were taken into state custody. According to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, in January 2026, five more children have been born since then.
One child born to a surrogate mother still lives with her surrogate mother in Virginia. Melissa Epps, the surrogate mother hired by the couple, was pregnant when she learned of the investigation last year and decided to give birth to the child.
The couple sued Epps for breaching the surrogacy contract, seeking the return of the baby girl as well as $1 million in damages from Epps. Epps initially had no lawyer and had to defend herself in court until Pamela DeCamp, a lawyer with the Virginia Legal Aid Society, took on her case.
Epps declined to be interviewed by the BBC. Her lawyer, DeCamp, said in a statement to the BBC, “We are very grateful for the efforts of the Los Angeles County District Attorney in California to secure justice for young children.”
Their cases will continue until next March. The baby girl is under the supervision of social services but is currently living with Epps. She recently celebrated her first birthday.
DeCamp said, “She continues to live safely and happily in Virginia, and we believe that will continue.”
We used artificial intelligence to translate this article, the original of which is in English. A BBC journalist checked the translation before publication.