District Attorney Maeghan Maloney (D) worked with defense attorneys this spring to replace felony drug-trafficking charges against four out-of-state grow-house defendants with an environmental count their lawyers told the court would not trigger automatic deportation.
The four — two from Brooklyn, one from Boston, and one from Malden, Massachusetts — had been charged with Class B marijuana cultivation and drug trafficking after Somerset County raids that netted more than 2,800 plants, more than 150 pounds of processed cannabis, and a 9mm pistol.
Maloney, the elected prosecutor for Kennebec and Somerset counties, dismissed those drug charges. Each defendant pleaded guilty instead to a single Class C count of improper handling of hazardous waste, a charge that sits in Maine’s waterways code, not the criminal code.
According to the Morning Sentinel, the charge was suggested by a defense lawyer.
The four who took the hazardous-waste plea were Shubing Gao, 48, and Yihui Chen, 53, both of Brooklyn; Xinwen Zhang, 72, of Boston; and Wenfeng Chen, 53, of Malden.
In open court, the defense attorneys said they believed the hazardous-waste conviction was not a “crime of moral turpitude” and would not result in automatic deportation.
Trafficking convictions would have been almost certain to put their clients on a plane back to their native China.
Each defendant then paid $10,000 to a Somerset County nonprofit approved by Maloney’s office, plus a $35 monthly supervision fee, and agreed to stay out of Maine and out of cannabis for one year. If they keep those terms, no further punishment follows.
Last week, Maloney and Somerset County Sheriff Dale Lancaster announced they had awarded $40,550 from those settlements to eight local groups. Thirty thousand dollars went to Maine Central Institute in Pittsfield to renovate a community center.
The Morning Sentinel reported the grants and the plea terms from court proceedings and from a news release issued by Maloney’s office. The raid totals come from the Somerset County Sheriff’s Office and from prior Maine Wire reporting.
There is no public record that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has removed them yet.
Gao and Yihui Chen were arrested in December 2024 at a West Ridge Road house in Cornville. First Assistant District Attorney Tim Snyder told the court that detectives found 1,100 marijuana plants in four rooms, 300 plants in a drying area, and two tubs of processed marijuana. Gao was wearing gloves covered in marijuana residue. Chen was wearing boot covers with the same material on them.
The Maine Wire reported at the time of the raid that deputies seized nearly 1,500 plants and 53 pounds of processed marijuana, and that the property at 235 West Ridge Road was owned by Jiabin Cui and appeared on a Department of Homeland Security compilation of addresses tied to Asian transnational organized crime. Gao and Chen were each charged with Class B unlawful trafficking and cultivation and held on $15,000 bail.
On May 20, they pleaded guilty to the hazardous-waste count. Prosecutors dismissed the drug felonies. Gao forfeited $1,850. Chen forfeited $130 and a 2015 Toyota Sienna. Snyder said both had already paid the $10,000 donations to the district attorney’s office that morning.
Zhang and Wenfeng Chen were arrested on April 1, 2025, at 212 South Road in Harmony. Deputies, joined by the U.S. Border Patrol, the DEA, the FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, the Waterville Police Department, and the Maine Office of Cannabis Policy, seized 1,405 marijuana plants, about 100 pounds of processed marijuana, a 9mm pistol with ammunition, $1,600 in cash, and a 2017 Toyota Sienna.
Sheriff Lancaster said the house was “clearly outfitted for large-scale cultivation” and that most of the interior was being used to grow and process cannabis. The two men were charged with Class B cultivation and trafficking. Their bail was set at $10,000 cash.
The Harmony house had already been hit once. In May 2024, deputies found more than 1,200 plants and 25 pounds of processed marijuana there and no one home. The property was purchased for cash by Nai Wen Zhao, who gave a Lewiston address on the deed.
Wenfeng Chen was not a new name. In March 2024, a Maine Wire reporter who visited an unlicensed grow at 51 Cider Hill Road in Corinna found a Massachusetts-registered 2017 Mercedes-Benz belonging to Chen of Malden in the driveway.
A year later he was in handcuffs in Harmony with 1,405 plants and a Glock. This spring he pleaded to the waterways charge. Prosecutors dropped the trafficking count. He forfeited the $1,600, the pistol, and the van. Zhang took the same deal.
