A California couple who had at least 21 children through surrogacy have been charged with child abuse after authorities alleged that children living in their mansion were subjected to repeated beatings and harsh punishment.
Guojun Xuan, 66 and Silvia Zhang, 39, are accused of recruiting surrogate mothers under false pretences before raising the children in what Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman described as a “house of horrors”. At least 14 of the children are alleged to have been abused.
Prosecutors allege that the couple operated a surrogacy agency, Mark Surrogacy Investment, from their more than 10,000-square-foot home in Arcadia from 2021. Authorities say they paid surrogates as much as $135,000 to carry their children, while allegedly concealing the scale and circumstances of their family.
The children, aged from two months to more than four years, were monitored using 32 cameras around the property, according to charging documents. Nannies were employed to care for them, while the children reportedly spent several hours a day at desks in so-called “learning centres”.
Authorities allege that the discipline routinely crossed into serious physical abuse. In one incident, a nanny allegedly struck a two-month-old baby in the head, leaving the infant with a head injury. Zhang is accused of telling hospital staff that the child had fallen from a bed, rather than disclosing the alleged assault.
The allegations raise disturbing questions about a system in which children can be brought into existence through commercial arrangements involving multiple adults while responsibility for their welfare becomes divided between commissioning parents, surrogates, agencies and carers.
The case also highlights the vulnerability of women involved in commercial surrogacy. Prosecutors allege that some surrogates were deliberately misled. One woman was reportedly told Zhang was “a single mother struggling to conceive”, while another became pregnant without knowing the couple already had more than a dozen children.
Xuan’s lawyer, Mitchell Krems, previously said his client was motivated by “his altruism”, claiming Xuan wanted his children to contribute to society as “philosophers, physicians, researchers and inventors”. Zhang said last year that the couple did not “sell our babies” and that they took care of them very well.
Both defendants face conspiracy charges relating to child abuse, alongside other allegations. If convicted, Xuan faces more than 17 years in prison while Zhang faces more than 11 years according to prosecutors.
The investigation remains ongoing and authorities have also charged one of the nannies, who has not yet been arrested.
