The mayor of Arcadia, California, has pleaded guilty to acting as an illegal agent for China.
The Justice Department released a statement Monday, when it announced Arcadia Mayor Eileen Wang, 58, was charged with one count of acting in the United States as an illegal agent of a foreign government.
She has resigned from her city position, officials said Monday.
Wang agreed to plead guilty and faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in a federal prison.
She was elected in November 2022 to the Arcadia City Council. The council is a five-member governing body that selects a mayor on a rotating basis.
“Individuals in our country who covertly do the bidding of foreign governments undermine our democracy,” First Assistant United States Attorney Bill Essayli said in the release.
In her plea agreement, Wang said she and Yaoning “Mike” Sun, 65, of Chino Hills, worked for the People’s Republic of China and promoted pro-Chinese propaganda in the U.S.
The FBI said the pair “worked together to operate U.S. News Center, a website that purported to be a news source for the local Chinese American community. Wang and Sun received and executed directives from PRC government officials to post pro-PRC content on the website.”
“This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions,” Essayli said.
FBI Counterintelligence and Espionage Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky said Wang’s guilty plea “serves as a clear warning” to individuals who choose to act on behalf of foreign governments.
“By her own admission, Eileen Wang secretly served the interests of the Chinese government,” Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said. “Let this serve as a clear warning: Individuals who act on behalf of foreign governments to influence our democracy will be identified, investigated, and brought to justice. Protecting the rule of law and the transparency of our democratic process remains at the core of the FBI’s mission, and we will continue working alongside our partners to safeguard the integrity of our elections and keep hostile actors from undermining the voices of the American people.”
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg noted her role as a public servant.
“Individuals elected to public office in the United States should act only for the people of the United States that they represent,” Eisenberg said. “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, but particularly so because that relationship with that foreign government had never been disclosed.”
“All Americans should be alarmed to learn an elected official was brazenly spreading propaganda on behalf of the Chinese government,” said Patrick Grandy, the Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office. “The FBI is dedicated to rooting out those illegally acting as agents of a foreign government as they do the bidding of America’s adversaries.”
The City of Arcadia said it “supports a thorough and comprehensive investigation by our federal partners into these serious allegations. As this process unfolds, we will continue to inform and engage our residents on this matter.”
