Free Republic

DA says 20 surrogate-born children suffered abuse in California 'house of horrors' A California mansion packed with young children was a "house of horrors," prosecutors say. Authorities on Tuesday arrested Guojon Xuan, 65, and his wife, 38-year-old Sylvia Zhang, on child abuse charges after a yearlong investigation into what officials describe as a tightly monitored "home school type" compound for more than 20 children, most of them born to surrogate mothers, the Los Angeles Times reports. Fifteen children, most of them between 1 and 3 years old, were removed from the home in the Los Angeles County city of Arcadia...

A Chinese-born couple who paid a nationwide web of surrogates to bear close to two dozen children for them were arrested Tuesday in what Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called an “unprecedented case of child abuse.” Hochman alleged that Silvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan conspired to commit child abuse by authorizing nannies caring for 14 babies and toddlers in the couple’s Arcadia, Calif., mansion to beat and physically punish the children, sometimes directing the abuse. Xuan was also charged with one count of child abuse, and both he and Zhang were additionally charged with dissuading witnesses. Mitchell Krems,...

Twenty-one children are in the custody of a California child-welfare agency while authorities investigate a Los Angeles-area couple and whether they misled surrogate mothers around the country. Fifteen children were removed from the couple’s opulent home in Arcadia after an abuse allegation in May, and another six living elsewhere were also located, Arcadia police Lt. Kollin Cieadlo said. They range in age from 2 months to 13 years, with most between 1 and 3. “We believe one or two were born biologically to the mother,” he said. “There are some surrogates who have come forward and said they were surrogates...