- Eileen Wang will reportedly plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for China.
- She resigned as the mayor of Arcadia, a city in California, on Monday.
- Wang’s legal defense implicated an associate for leading her into dubious actions.
The mayor of a Southern California city resigned Monday amid allegations that she acted as an illegal agent for the Chinese government.
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.
Wang appeared in federal court to face the charges Monday, and later was released on a $25,000 bond.
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 9½ months.
“It 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,” said one federal official, John A. Eisenberg, the assistant attorney general for National Security.
What we know about Eileen Wang
Wang is accused of promoting pro-China messaging through a community news website between 2020 and 2022.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Amanda Elbogen said Wang “executed directives. She did what they told her to do,” referring to Chinese officials. “They’d give her praise for how well she’s doing. She’d say, ‘Thank you, leader.’”
Wang’s lawyers attempted to blame Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, for leading the former mayor astray.
“Events in Ms. Wang’s personal life — including her trust and love for apparently the wrong person who ultimately led her astray — require her to step away from public service,” the lawyers said in a statement.
“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.”
Her co-conspirator, Sun, was arrested 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.
City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto, in a statement, said, “We 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.”
“Following an internal review, we can confirm that no City finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved.”
“We 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.”
What is Eileen Wang accused of doing?
The federal press release also cited examples of Wang and Sun complying with the Chinese government’s directives.
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: “China’s Stance on the Xinjiang Issue — There is no genocide in Xinjiang; there is no such thing as ‘forced labor’ in any production activity, including cotton production.”
“Spreading such rumor to defame China, destroy Xinjiang’s safety and stability, weaken local economy, suppress China’s development,” the essay continued.
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, “So fast, thank you everyone.”
In another instance from November 2021, Wang spoke to John Chen, who was sentenced 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.
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 “news” story for her website. He wrote, “This is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wants to send.”