Disgraced former Arcadia mayor Eileen Wang entered her plea today in federal court following the bombshell admission that she was a spy for China.
Wang pleaded guilty on Friday after taking a plea deal with the Department of Justice, admitting that she had acted as an illegal agent of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), ABC7 reported.
Wang agreed with prosecutors that she worked with the PRC to boost propaganda with a fake news website on US soil between 2020 and 2022. She was elected to the city council in Arcadia — a city in the San Gabriel Valley within LA County — in November 2022.
Wang, 58, worked with her then-fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, on a website called “U.S. News Center,” which claimed to be a news source for Chinese Americans, according to court documents.
But in reality, the pair were carrying out Beijing’s orders through the site.
Wang and Sun “executed directives” from the Chinese government, posting propaganda designed to boost China, all while reporting back to their masters with screenshots showing how many people viewed the stories, according to the plea agreement.
Sun was arrested and federally charged with acting as a covert agent of the PRC in 2024. He was later sentenced to four years in prison.
Earlier this month, the DOJ unsealed Wang’s federal charges for acting as an unregistered agent of the PRC and also released her signed plea deal.
After the charges were unsealed, Wang resigned from the Arcadia City Council, vacating her job as mayor of the Southern California town.
“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 announcement about the plea deal.
“This plea agreement is the latest success in our determination to defend the homeland against China’s efforts to corrupt our institutions.”
Assistant Director Roman Rozhavsky of the FBI’s Counterintelligence and Espionage Division said that this should “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.”
Last week the Arcadia City Council appointed council member Paul P. Cheng to serve out the term as Mayor until the next election cycle in November 2026, per the city.
“The allegations at the center of this case, that a foreign government sought to exert influence over a local elected official, are deeply troubling. We take them seriously,” a statement on the city website read.
“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.”
Wang’s sentencing is scheduled for October 6. She faces a statutory maximum sentence of up to 10 years in federal prison.