The mayor of a suburb of Los Angeles stepped down from her position after U.S. officials announced that she will enter a guilty plea in federal court to charges of acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government. Federal prosecutors stated that Eileen Wang, 58, of Arcadia, California, has officially been charged with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government and is expected to “plead guilty in the coming weeks.”
The crime could land her in prison for up to a decade. “Mayor Wang admitted to acting as a foreign agent from at least 2020 through 2022 – promoting PRC propaganda in the U.S. and acting at PRC’s direction to promote their interests,” FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X. “FBI and our federal partners continue to move aggressively to root out this kind of influence in American institutions all over the country.”
Wang was elected to the Arcadia City Council in November 2022. The five-member council chooses a mayor using a rotation system. City Manager Dominic Lazzaretto revealed in a statement that Wang, who took office as mayor in February 2026, has resigned from the council. “The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling,” Lazzaretto said.
According to an article published by Time, Lazzaretto also clarified that the charge brought against Wang is for actions that came to an end after she was sworn in and that an internal review found that no city finances, staff, or decision-making processes were involved. Wang’s attorney also put out a statement saying that Wang “apologizes and is sorry for the mistakes she has made in her personal life.”
The attorney then said, “Her love and devotion for the Arcadia community have not changed and did not waver.” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli stated in the announcement of the charge, “Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy.” He added that the plea agreement Wang has entered is “the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”
Wang is a Chinese immigrant to the United States. She moved to Southern California from China 30 years ago. In a report published by the Los Angeles Times, Wang said that her mom was a Chinese medicine and acupuncture doctor, while her dad worked as a physician in Sichuan province before taking a position at the University of Southern California.
The report stated that Wang, who has two children, had been living in Arcadia for almost 20 years and was known for overseeing an after-school program in the city called Little Stanford Academy before she jumped into politics. About 59% of the 54,000 population of Arcadia is Asian, while over 42% is ethnically Chinese. Interestingly, Wang was once engaged to Yaoning “Mike” Sun, who just earlier this year was sentenced to a four-year term in prison for also acting as a covert agent for China.
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According to information from the Justice Department, he was acting as a spy for China while also serving as a campaign advisor for an unnamed political candidate “who was elected to the city council of a Southern California city.” That individual was Wang. The charge against Wang was first filed in April, but court filings, including the plea agreement Wang entered into, were not unsealed until May.
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