Eileen Wang, the former mayor of Arcadia, California, pleaded guilty to secretly acting as an agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Wang’s plea came about three weeks after he was charged with the felony in a federal court on May 11, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California said in a news release at the time. The same day, the city announced that he resigned from his role.
Wang appeared in court and pleaded guilty on Friday KTLA, abc 7 And cbs news. He is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 6 and faces up to 10 years in federal prison.
In a statement following her resignation, Wang, who joins the Arcadia City Council in 2022 and was sworn in as mayor on Feb. 16, said she “apologizes and regrets the mistakes she made in her personal life.”
The 58-year-old woman admitted in a plea agreement that she and Yaoning “Mike” Sun of Chino Hills worked together to promote pro-PRC propaganda in the U.S. from late 2020 to 2022, prosecutors said in a May 11 news release.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, Sun pleaded guilty in October 2025 to acting as an illegal agent of a foreign government and is now serving a four-year federal prison sentence.
The pair ran a website called US News Center, which was supposed to be a news source for the local Chinese-American community.
On the site, he posted pro-PRC content at the direction of PRC government officials and also communicated with PRC officials via encrypted messages on WeChat regarding pre-written news articles.
Prosecutors allege that after Wang published a specific article on his site, he shared the data with a PRC official and confirmed that the article had been viewed more than 15,000 times. When the official expressed that he was pleased, Wang reportedly replied, “Thank you leader.”
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg condemned the action in a May 11 news release, saying, “Persons elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States whom they represent.”
He concluded, “It is extremely worrying that a person who previously received and executed instructions from PRC government officials is now in a position of public trust, but especially because that relationship with a foreign government was never disclosed.”
