California couple charged in alleged abuse of surrogate-born children
publishers 28articles 32first reported 6 Oct, 18:15 UTCdeveloping since 7 Oct · 8 editions
Los Angeles County prosecutors charged Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, with conspiring to abuse young children born through surrogacy and raised at their mansion in Arcadia, California.
A felony complaint alleges that the couple directed nannies to physically punish children, monitored the beatings through an extensive surveillance system and coached children to deny the abuse before police arrived, according to the South China Morning Post. The district attorney’s office said at least 14 surrogate-born children, including some as young as two months, were abused. Prosecutors accused the couple of conspiring to subject 15 of the 16 children living in the home to repeated physical abuse.
Other reports described the broader surrogacy arrangement as involving at least 21 children. Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman called the number of children allegedly subjected to abuse “unprecedented.”
Xuan and Zhang were arrested Tuesday. ABC7 Los Angeles reported that they pleaded not guilty to the child-abuse charges. Prosecutors are seeking bail of US$100 million for each defendant.
HOW THIS STORY WAS MADE
Written from 8 articles, 1 with the publisher's own text; 7 independent newsrooms once syndicated copies count as one; this version written 18 h after the record first saw the story; the editor kept it as written.
- Publishers
- 28
- Source articles
- 32
- Given to the writer
- 8, 1 with the article's own text
- Independent newsrooms
- 7
- This version written
- 18 h after the record first saw the story
- Second model (editor)
- kept as written
- Publication gate
- passed
- Human review
- none
WHAT THE EDITOR DID
The second model checked the writer's draft against the same sources and published it as written.
Written by a language model from the sources above, then checked by a second model that may only cut, attribute or correct. How it works →