Topline
The mayor of a city in California will plead guilty after being charged with acting as an illegal unregistered agent for China, federal prosecutors said on Monday, for allegedly running a website that published propaganda at the direction of Chinese officials.
Key Facts
Eileen Wang, the mayor of Arcadia, a city in Los Angeles County with a population over 50,000, was charged with acting as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
According to federal prosecutors, Wang operated a news website with Yaoning “Mike” Sun from 2020 through 2022, who is currently serving a four-year prison term for the same charges, which posted content directed by Chinese government officials.
The charges come with a maximum prison sentence of 10 years, and Wang is expected to plead guilty.
Wang, who was first elected to the Arcadia City Council in 2022, resigned from her seat and vacated her position, Arcadia City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto said in a statement Monday to residents of the California city.
Lazzaretto said the city conducted an internal review, which found no “finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved” with Wang’s alleged wrongdoing.
A magistrate judge in Los Angeles posted her bond at $25,000 and ordered her to surrender her passports, the Los Angeles Times reported, while her attorneys said she “apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life.”
What Are Prosecutors Saying?
Prosecutors are alleging Wang and Sun worked together to run a Chinese-American news website called “U.S. News Center.” According to prosecutors, this website published pro-China propaganda and “pre-written news articles” directed by Chinese government officials from encrypted messaging apps like WeChat. As an example, prosecutors said Wang coordinated to post a letter to the editor from China’s consul general in Los Angeles published in the Los Angeles Times downplaying China’s treatment of its Uyghur population in Xinjiang. They also allege that she was in contact with John Chen, who also pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent of China and attempting to bribe an IRS agent in 2024 in the Southern District of New York. Chen was sentenced to 20 months in prison.
