Maine Prosecutor Cuts Deal to Protect Illicit Chinese Cannabis Growers from Deportation

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