LOS ANGELES (BN24) — California authorities have taken custody of 21 children amid an investigation into whether a Los Angeles-area couple misled surrogate mothers across the country, police said Wednesday.
According to the Associated Press, fifteen children were removed in May from an opulent home in Arcadia, east of Los Angeles, following an abuse report. Six additional children living elsewhere were also located, Arcadia police Lt. Kollin Cieadlo said. The children, ranging in age from 2 months to 13 years old, are now under the care of county child welfare officials. Most of them are toddlers between 1 and 3 years old.
“We believe one or two of the children were born biologically to the mother,” Cieadlo said. “There are some surrogates who have come forward and said they were surrogates for the children.”
The couple, identified as Silvia Zhang, 38, and Guojun Xuan, 65, are believed to be the legal parents of all 21 children, he said.
Their arrests in May came after a local hospital alerted police that their 2-month-old infant had suffered a traumatic head injury. Investigators allege the injury was caused when a nanny violently shook the baby inside the home. The child was not taken to the hospital for two days.
Although authorities initially considered filing neglect charges, Cieadlo said those charges were not pursued to allow the broader investigation to continue.
According to police, Zhang and Xuan told officers they simply “wanted a large family.”
The case has raised questions about how many of the children were born through surrogacy and whether the women carrying the pregnancies were fully informed.
Source: AP
