{"id":312620,"date":"2026-05-12T22:12:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312620\/"},"modified":"2026-05-12T22:12:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T22:12:21","slug":"southern-california-mayor-charged-in-chinese-espionage-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/312620\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern California mayor charged in Chinese espionage scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The mayor of a Southern California city resigned Monday amid allegations that she acted as an illegal agent for the Chinese government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Last month, the federal government charged Eileen Wang, 58, with acting on behalf of a foreign adversarial government. She has agreed to plead guilty to the felony charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, according to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Wang appeared in federal court to face the charges Monday, and later was released on a $25,000 bond.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Wang was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022. This five-person governing body selects the mayor and mayor pro tem on a rotating basis, with terms of roughly 9\u00bd months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cIt is deeply concerning that someone who previously received and executed directives from PRC government officials is now in a position of public trust at all,\u201d said one federal official, John A. Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for National Security.<\/p>\n<p>What we know about Eileen Wang<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Wang is accused of promoting pro-China messaging through a community news website between 2020 and 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Elbogen said Wang \u201cexecuted directives. She did what they told her to do,\u201d referring to Chinese officials. \u201cThey\u2019d give her praise for how well she\u2019s doing. She\u2019d say, \u2018Thank you, leader.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Wang\u2019s lawyers attempted to blame Yaoning \u201cMike\u201d Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, for leading the former mayor astray.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cEvents in Ms. Wang\u2019s personal life \u2014 including her trust and love for apparently the wrong person who ultimately led her astray \u2014 require her to step away from public service,\u201d the lawyers said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cShe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Her co-conspirator, Sun, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2024\/dec\/22\/chinese-agent-los-angeles-election\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:was arrested;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;was arrested&quot;}\" class=\"link \">was arrested<\/a> in December 2024. He pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign country and was sentenced to four years in federal prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto, in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.arcadiaca.gov\/?rz=newsDetails&amp;id=370#news-section\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:statement;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;statement&quot;}\" class=\"link \">statement<\/a>, said, \u201cWe want to be clear: this investigation concerns individual conduct, and the charges are for conduct that ceased after Ms. Wang was sworn into office in December 2022.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cFollowing an internal review, we can confirm that no City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cWe have found no actions that require reconsideration or that are invalidated as a result of these developments. The remainder of the City Council is not under investigation and City operations continue without interruption.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What is Eileen Wang accused of doing?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The federal press release also cited examples of Wang and Sun complying with the Chinese government\u2019s directives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In one instance from June 2021, a Chinese official contacted Wang and others on WeChat, an encrypted messaging app, and sent them prewritten news articles, including an official Chinese government-written essay in the Los Angeles Times that stated: \u201cChina\u2019s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue \u2014 There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as \u2018forced labor\u2019 in any production activity, including cotton production.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">\u201cSpreading such rumor to defame China, destroy Xinjiang\u2019s safety and stability, weaken local economy, suppress China\u2019s development,\u201d the essay continued.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As per the press release, Wang published the article on her website and sent a link to the post to the Chinese official, as did other members of the group chat. The foreign official responded, \u201cSo fast, thank you everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In another instance from November 2021, Wang spoke to John Chen, who was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usao-sdny\/pr\/california-man-sentenced-acting-illegal-agent-prc-government-and-bribery\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:sentenced;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;sentenced&quot;}\" class=\"link \">sentenced<\/a> in late 2024 to 20 months in federal prison after pleading guilty to charges of acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government and conspiracy to bribe a public official.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Wang requested Chen, a well-connected elite with connections to the Chinese Communist Party, who has previously met Chinese President Xi Jinping, to write a \u201cnews\u201d story for her website. He wrote, \u201cThis is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mayor of a Southern California city resigned Monday amid allegations that she acted as an illegal agent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":312621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,14323,130503,14268,49162],"class_list":["post-312620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-chinese-government","tag-chinese-officials","tag-eileen-wang","tag-federal-prison"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/312620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/312621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=312620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=312620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}