A Southern California couple at the center of a child abuse investigation that involves 21 young children, some of whom were birthed by different surrogate mothers, engaged in unethical and illegal activity while running their real estate business, according to two separate lawsuits filed by former employees.
“They’re terrible people. They just had shady business practices,” said Tina Powers, a former real estate assistant for Silvia Zhang and Guojun Xuan.
Powers said she worked for the couple’s real estate company, Yudao Investments, for six months in 2022. She’s among a group of six former real estate employees who filed a class action lawsuit that accuses Zhang and Xuan of unfair treatment, including failure to pay overtime wages and failure to permit timely rest breaks.
The suit, filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court in December 2023, is ongoing.
Zhang and Xuan have not responded to multiple requests for comment. An attorney who represented them in the class action suit and the second lawsuit could not immediately be reached for comment.
According to Powers, Zhang and Xuan initially ran their real estate business out of their Los Angeles suburban mansion, where police recently removed 15 children amid their investigation after a 2-month-old baby was brought to the hospital with head injuries. The children were taken into protective custody, police in Arcadia said.
A spokesman for the Arcadia Police Department said Thursday that video evidence recovered from the home shows that some of the younger children “were subjected to physical and emotional abuse” by nannies, and they believe Zhang and Xuan “knew all this was occurring and let it happen.” An arrest warrant has been issued for the 56-year-old nanny who authorities say was seen on camera violently shaking and striking the 2-month-old baby who was hospitalized.
Zhang, 38, and Xuan, 65, were arrested in May on suspicion of felony child endangerment and neglect but were released from custody pending further investigation.
Six other children belonging to the couple were found in the care of family and friends, police said. It is not clear how many of the children were born to surrogate mothers.
Powers said that when she worked for the couple, many of the rooms in the nine-bedroom home had been turned into offices, and there were cameras everywhere because “they thought you were conspiring against them.”
She recalled seeing four or five children in the home: one she believed to be biologically Zhang’s from a previous relationship and three others who she believed biologically belonged to a woman who was allegedly a surrogate and a nanny. Zhang and Xuan also had one biological child together, Powers said.
“We used to call it the nursery. There were two girls that helped her out with that,” she said. “One of them was a surrogate.”
Powers said she never witnessed any abuse toward the children, but she said Zhang and Xuan would yell at each other and mistreat their real estate employees. She alleged that some workers were paid a lower salary than what was advertised in the job description, were paid late, were denied proper breaks, and were not given sick leave.
The lawsuit alleges that the employees typically worked over eight hours a day without being paid overtime, and that on most days they were not able to take a “timely” and “uninterrupted” meal break of at least 30 minutes.
The couple would also fire workers whenever they felt like it, Powers said. Most of the employees involved in the class action lawsuit only worked for the couple for a few months in 2022, according to the complaint.
“It was just very poor working conditions. It was dysfunctional. Those two yelled and screamed at each other like bloody murder, and it would just echo throughout the mansion. They would throw things at each other. It was not acceptable,” she said. “Working for them was terrible.”
Around July 2022, the real estate business moved out of the mansion and into an office building in El Monte. Powers said she was terminated by the couple in September 2022 after she began speaking up for herself and her colleagues.
“I was insisting that they fix things,” she said. “They accused me of writing down something wrong. They came, locked down my computer, and expected me to stay there for the whole day waiting for my check, like they did everybody else. I just left. And I was like, thank God it’s over. They were just terrible people.”
Shortly after she was terminated, Powers reached out to her former colleagues, and they filed the lawsuit.
“The minute I left, I started making calls because I knew it wasn’t right,” she said.
In July 2022, another former employee sued the real estate company and Xuan, alleging wrongful termination, battery, assault and failure to pay overtime. Alejandro Diaz alleged in his lawsuit that Xuan threw rocks at him following an argument, brandished an assault rifle and fired him without proper pay.
In a cross-complaint, Yudao alleged that Diaz was the aggressor and said the firearm Diaz saw was a toy gun Xuan had as he played with his son.
Diaz began working for the couple in May 2022 as an eviction manager, according to the complaint. The lawsuit says that Xuan created a hostile work environment, screamed at employees, and illegally removed tenants from their homes.
Diaz described his time working for the couple as “chaotic.” He said he was fired after eight days on the job following an incident with Xuan.
The suit states that during one trip to a rental property, Diaz witnessed Xuan illegally change the locks to a home, preventing the tenant from entering the residence. When the tenant arrived at the property, an argument ensued.
Diaz, Xuan and another eviction manager eventually left the property and went to another home, where Xuan allegedly yelled at the tenant and fired a stun gun at the tenant’s dog, according to the lawsuit. Xuan allegedly became irate and began kicking the tenant’s door before leaving the property.
Diaz, according to the lawsuit, told Xuan that his method of evicting tenants was violent and illegal. The two got into an argument, and Xuan is accused of becoming “increasingly hostile” and hitting Diaz’s hand, the lawsuit says. When Diaz told Xuan not to touch him, Xuan allegedly “started swinging at Diaz” and throwing rocks at him.
Back at the office, Xuan asked Diaz to meet in his office. According to the lawsuit, Xuan “began throwing office items” at Diaz. Another employee had to intervene and took Diaz outside, it says.
Diaz said he was informed that he had been fired and was told to wait for his final paycheck, the suit states. He alleged in the lawsuit that as he waited for his check, Xuan came into the garage with what appeared to be an assault rifle and stared at him “in a threatening manner.” Fearing for his safety, Diaz called the police, according to the lawsuit. He said Zhang gave him his final paycheck, but it did not include any of the overtime he had worked.
Diaz’s lawsuit was settled earlier this year with a confidentiality clause, his attorney said.
Powers said she has not kept in touch with Zhang or Xuan since she was fired, but was not shocked by the recent allegations. Diaz said he always felt like “something was off” during his brief employment.
“I sensed something sinister was going on … but I couldn’t really pinpoint it,” he said. “I wasn’t sure what was happening.”
One surrogate mother, Kayla Elliott, told NBC News that she thought she was helping a couple who struggled to conceive, and was unaware that Zhang and Xuan had so many other children. The child Elliott birthed is now in foster care, and she is fighting to gain custody.
The Arcadia Police Department said it is working with the FBI and the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services as it investigates the couple.
In a text message to Los Angeles television station KTLA, a phone number associated with Zhang said that “any accusations of wrongdoing are misguided and wrong,” and she looks forward to “vindicating any such claims at the appropriate time when and if any actions are brought.”
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