An Arcadia couple was arrested Tuesday, Oct. 6, accused of abusing and allowing nannies to physically beat their 21 children, most who were born via surrogacy.
During a downtown Los Angeles press conference, District Attorney Nathan Hochman called the couple’s Arcadia home in the 600 block of West Camino Real Avenue a house of horrors.
The case against 66-year-old Guojun Xuan and 39-year-old Silvia Shasha Zhang,Hochman said, was “unprecedented (involving) incredibly disturbing, horrific punishment and beatings and child abuse. …
“The beating and punishment these children received is despicable,” he said. “There will be a reckoning for these two defendants.”
Detectives served a search warrant at the Arcadia house when arresting Xuan and Zhang, Sheriff Robert Luna said.
Both Xuan and Zhang face charges of conspiracy to commit child abuse.
Xuan also faces additional charges of child abuse, accessory after the fact and five counts of dissuading a witness. Zhang also faces additional charges of accessory after the fact and four counts of dissuading a witness.
If convicted as charged, Xuan could receive a maximum sentence of more than 17 years and Zhang over 11 years.
One nanny, Chunmei Li, accused of violently shaking and hitting the couple’s then-2-month-old baby boy, faces 12 years in prison if convicted, he said. Li has a warrant out for her arrest.
Xuan’s lawyer, Mitchell Krems, couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday.
Concern surfaced in April 2021 when the couple moved into the 10,280-square-foot Arcadia home then started a company, Mark Surrogacy Investments, to hire surrogates throughout the United States, Hochman said.
The couple lied to several of the surrogates, with Zhang telling one she was a single mother who struggled to conceive. Another was told that the couple had a teenage daughter, and a third was not told that the couple had 16 other surrogate children until the surrogate was seven months pregnant.
They would pay surrogates $65,000 to $135,000, Hochman said.
Why the couple wanted so many surrogate children was not disclosed during the press conference.
But the couple told Arcadia police they wanted a large family.
Xuan wants to continue his legacy, Mitchell Krems, Xuan’s lawyer, told this newspaper during a Monday afternoon interview. He pointed out that Xuan was from China which limited families to one child. (The one-child policy which started in the 70s ended in 2016.)
Xuan is a real estate business man who came to the U.S. to live the American dream, Krems said.
There is no law in the U.S. that prevents people from having a lot of children, he said.
Krems denied Xuan was abusive to the children.
Xuan is involved in the children’s education, he said.
“He wants these children to be productive member of society,” Krems said.
Inside the home, Xuan and Zhang created three learning centers with desks where the children, ages 1 to 4, would sit for hours, Hochman said. They also set up more than 30 surveillance cameras, which the couple watched on a large television screen in another room.
Another camera focused on a separate room, where nannies were seen carrying children inside, Hochman said. The children could then be heard screaming from that room.
In one instance, a nanny required a child to maintain a horse stance, Hochman said.
“Xuan chuckled while watching the punishment,” he said.
In another instance, Xuan entered one of the learning centers while a nanny was striking a child and allegedly told the nanny to hit the child harder. In another instance, Xuan joined in on the beating, picked a child up by an arm and hit him back and forth across the head with such force that the body “larched,” Hochman said.
Another child at one point was seen on camera being beaten by a nanny with a shoe as Xuan and Zhang watched and laughed, Hochman said.
Xuan would have Zhang pay the nannies with stacks of cash from his office, the district attorney said.
Xuan and Zhang were originally arrested May 9, 2025 by Arcadia police on suspicion of child endangerment or neglect after Walter, then 2 months old, ended up in the hospital.
Surveillance video showed one of the couple’s nannies, Li, abusing the child on May 4, 2025, police said.
The baby became unconscious but wasn’t taken to a hospital until two days after he started having seizures. Police found out after hospital staff called them.
Zhang had told a social worker that the toddler had accidentally fallen off a bed while being cared for by a nanny, according to a search warrant filed by detectives.
But doctors told investigators that they suspected the child’s injuries – which included a subdural hematoma and retinal hemorrhages – were consistent with child abuse and consistent with injuries sustained during a car accident or from being shaken.
Back then, there were 14 children from surrogate mothers in the Arcadia mansion along with two other children, Hochman said.
Five other children were located in other homes in Los Angeles County, police said.
Zhang told detectives she was the biological mother of two of the children and surrogate mother to all the others.
In May 2025, Xuan and Zhang met with the nannies and were told that while disciplining the children, they were not to leave physical marks.
Before Arcadia officers arrived to the house that same month, Zhang told the children and nannies to deny the were beaten, Hochman said, and one nanny was told to hide sticks that were used to strike the children.
Xuan and Zhang were released from custody on May 13, 2025.
The arrests garnered nationwide attention after it came out that the couple had most of their 21 children via surrogacy. Several surrogates also made allegations that they told different stories by the couple.
The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services took the children into protective custody when the couple was arrested last year.
It’s not clear where the children are now.
“While we understand the public’s interest in children from Los Angeles County who may have received supportive services from DCFS, state law prohibits the department from disclosing or confirming our possible involvement with families. Confidentiality laws protect the privacy of those who may have come into contact with DCFS while resolving complex family issues. Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services,” the department said in a statement on Tuesday.