Eileen Wang stepped down as mayor of Arcadia, California, the same day federal prosecutors unsealed a deal that will send her into a guilty plea.

Wang was charged with one count of acting in the United States as an agent of a foreign government without telling the Justice Department. That felony carries a maximum of 10 years in prison, plus supervised release and fines. She agreed to plead guilty. She formally entered the plea in Los Angeles federal court on May 29, 2026. Sentencing was set for October 6. Bond was $25,000.

Arcadia is a San Gabriel Valley suburb with a large Chinese and Taiwanese immigrant community. Wang won a City Council seat in November 2022. The mayor’s job rotates among council members. She took that chair in early 2026, then resigned hours after the plea papers went public on May 11.

Prosecutors say the crime happened before she was elected. From late 2020 through 2022 she and her then-fiancé, Yaoning “Mike” Sun, ran a site called U.S. News Center. It presented itself as news for Chinese Americans. The plea says they took orders from People’s Republic of China officials, posted the articles they were told to post, and sent back screenshots of the traffic.

One example in the deal: a June 2021 encrypted message asking them to publish an essay denying genocide and forced labor in Xinjiang. Wang posted it within minutes and sent the official the link. The reply, according to the filing, was “So fast, thank you everyone.”

Sun, also known as Mike Sun, had already pleaded guilty to the same charge. He got four years. He had been her campaign manager. Their relationship ended in 2024.

Wang’s lawyers said she accepts responsibility for “past personal mistakes” and that her love for Arcadia did not change. City officials stressed the conduct predates her time in office. Residents still asked why she was not pushed out sooner.

The charge is not espionage in the classic spy sense. It is the unregistered-agent statute: if you work here at the direction of a foreign government, you have to tell the attorney general. She did not. The site did not disclose that Beijing was feeding the copy.

U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said people who covertly do a foreign government’s bidding undermine democracy. The national security side of DOJ said elected officials should work only for the people they represent.

Wang is 56 or 58 depending on the filing. She needed a Mandarin interpreter at the first appearance. The portrait on this graphic is the official smile. The case is the website, the encrypted messages, and a mayor who quit on the day the public found out.