The mayor of a California city resigned Monday after agreeing to plead guilty to federal charges accusing her of acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China.

Mayor Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, was charged with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government, the Justice Department said Monday. Her resignation from office and imminent plea deal were announced as the federal court case was unsealed in Los Angeles County, which includes Arcadia.

The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison.

“By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” Roman Rozhavsky, assistant director of the FBI’s counterintelligence and espionage division, said in a statement.

The case is an extraordinary local-government turn in a broader federal investigation into alleged Chinese influence efforts in Southern California. Prosecutors said the conduct described in Wang’s plea agreement took place from late 2020 through 2022, before she was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022.

Arcadia, a San Gabriel Valley city of about 54,000 people, is majority Asian, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates.

According to prosecutors, Wang and Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, operated U.S. News Center, a website that presented itself as a news source for the local Chinese American community. Prosecutors said the pair received and followed directions from Chinese government officials to publish pro-PRC content on the site.

In one June 2021 example cited by prosecutors, a Chinese government official sent Wang and others prewritten material through WeChat about Xinjiang, including language denying genocide and forced labor there.

Prosecutors said Wang posted the material minutes later and sent the official a link. The official replied, “So fast, thank you everyone,” according to court records.

Wang admitted in her plea agreement that she was acting as an agent of the PRC and did not disclose on her website that some content had been posted at the direction of Chinese government members, according to the Justice Department.

“She apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life. Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver,” Wang’s attorneys, Brian A. Sun and Jason Liang, said in a statement Monday.

Sun is serving a four-year federal prison sentence after pleading guilty in October 2025 to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government. Federal prosecutors said Sun had served as a campaign adviser for a Southern California city council candidate who was elected in 2022.

Arcadia officials said Monday that Wang had resigned from the City Council, vacating the mayor’s seat. The council is expected to select a new mayor and mayor pro tem, typically done on a rotating basis, at its next meeting and discuss how District 3 will be represented until the November 2026 election cycle.

“We remain committed to serving our residents with transparency, consistency, and the highest standard of public trust,” it said in a statement. “The City is ready to assist federal authorities if called upon to do so.”

Wang appeared in federal court in downtown Los Angeles on Monday afternoon, and her plea deal should be finalized in the coming weeks, federal prosecutors said.

Subscribe

There’s more to San Francisco with the Chronicle. Subscribe today for just 25¢.

This article originally published at California mayor resigns after admitting she acted as agent of China.