One of the defendants accused of allowing more than a dozen of their surrogate children to suffer abuse inside an Arcadia “house of horrors” previously fled the country to dodge a child abuse investigation, a prosecutor said in court Friday.
Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. MacKenzie Teymouri also told a judge Friday that Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, kept their more than 20 children trapped inside the Arcadia mansion for years, almost never letting them see sunlight.
During a search of the home last week, police also found the cremated remains of another surrogate child that had been mailed to the house; the baby died shortly after birth in Florida, Teymouri said. The defendants never opened the box, according to Teymouri, who said Xuan and Zhang were “indifferent” to the well-being of their children.
The Friday afternoon hearing was sparked by Xuan and Zhang’s attorneys attempts to have their clients released on their own recognizance. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Caroline Lugo instead ordered them held in lieu of $20 million bail. Teymouri filed a motion last week seeking to have the couple held on $100 million bail, citing their extreme wealth.
The couple was charged last week with multiple counts of conspiracy to commit child abuse and witness intimidation. Prosecutors allege the couple directed a half-dozen nannies they employed to constantly beat the children for even the slightest misbehavior inside their home “learning center.”
They have pleaded not guilty and denied the accusations through their attorneys, who declined to comment on the new allegations leveled in court Friday by prosecutors.
Security system surveillance footage taken from inside the home last year revealed “thousands” of instances of physical abuse over the course of 10 days, according to a bail deviation motion filed by prosecutors last week. Xuan is also charged with physically beating one of the children.
Earlier this week, a Times report revealed Zhang had previously been charged with child abuse for leaving her oldest daughter in a hot car for hours, while Xuan was accused in a civil lawsuit of using violence in landlord-tenant disputes.
Xuan’s attorney, Mitchell Krems, previously noted his client had never been convicted of a crime.
“Any type of accusation that my client is violent at this point has not been adjudicated,” he said.
Krems has blamed the alleged abuse on the couple’s nannies and suggested Xuan and Zhang are the victims of rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S.
The Times reported that L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services had received referrals involving Xuan and Zhang seven times between 2019 and 2025, but didn’t act to take the children out of the home until last year.
In court Friday, Teymouri revealed additional information about past child abuse claims about the defendants and the conditions in the home.
After she was charged with child abuse for leaving her daughter in a hot car in 2019, Zhang fled to China, according to Teymouri. Police arrived at the scene after the then-8-year-old girl called 911 from inside the car, Teymouri said. Zhang was visiting Xuan at the time. It’s unclear when Zhang returned to the U.S. and reunited with Xuan.
Teymouri said the children kept in the Arcadia home were isolated from society, almost never leaving the house.
“They didn’t go to school outside the home. They didn’t go to playgrounds. They didn’t go to restaurants,” she said. “They lived in this home and witnessed violence in the kitchen, in the bathrooms in the bedrooms, in the foyer.”
The children were taught “math, Mandarin and English” nearly around the clock. Regardless of age, they were expected to sit up straight and pay attention, or suffer beatings, Teymouri said.
“From sunup, to sundown, these children, whether they’re in a high chair or old enough to sit at a desk, sat in what can only be described as makeshift classrooms,” she said.
A view of the home, shown at center, of Sylvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan in Arcadia.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
After the children were taken into custody by the Department of Children and Family Services last year they were “scared to go to the park because they hadn’t been outside,” Teymouri said.
According to Teymouri, authorities have video footage of Xuan walking through a room of the kids sleeping in rows and sweeping a flashlight, “like a warden.” When one child woke up, the prosecutor said, Xuan allegedly hit them with a backhand and ordered them to go back to sleep.
Krems argued in court that his client should be freed because his health is deteriorating in L.A. County Sheriff’s Department custody. Xuan is recovering from leukemia treatments, has a “hole in his chest” and has fallen so ill he now permanently requires a wheelchair, Krems said.
Zhang’s attorney, Mark Koohanim, said the alleged child abuse was not severe enough to warrant the high bail.
“These kids, there was no cigarette burn marks. There was no cages. There was no dog collars. There was no abuse by belts. These kids were well nutritioned, they were getting education every day,” he said, adding that they lived in an expensive sprawling Arcadia mansion.
But Lugo concurred with Teymouri’s argument that the family’s extreme wealth and potential risk of flight required her to set a high bail. One of the nannies, Chunmei Li, was previously charged with child abuse for hitting one of the children so hard they suffered a brain bleed. Li fled to China, with Xuan and Zhang’s help, according to court filings.
Teymouri said while reviewing video evidence in the case, she had to watch the footage on mute due to the near “constant screaming” of children in the background. The prosecutor argued the beatings basically never stopped, claiming footage showed nannies beating one child, then turning their violence toward any of the other toddlers who wept while watching.
