The first Chinese national to plead guilty after his arrest in the massive Green Jade illegal marijuana growing bust in late November has filed a motion with the Grays Harbor County Superior Court to retract his guilty plea.

Fen Shou Chen said problems finding a translator who spoke his dialect resulted in his not being aware that the guilty plea he entered would change his immigration status. Chen was in the country legally, but the plea deal means he is set for deportation and as of Monday he was still detained in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Tacoma.

Chen was released from the Grays Harbor County Jail after entering the guilty plea March 23 and immediately detained by immigration agents.

Deputy prosecutor Randy Trick said he will oppose Chen’s request. A hearing scheduled for Monday was rescheduled for July 2, when Trick is hoping he has had time to listen to the transcripts of the previous hearings to hear for himself if Chen could be heard saying he understood the terms of the plea arrangement.

“The transcripts are going to tell us if he told the court he understood,” said Trick.

Few of the Chinese nationals spoke English, necessitating translators versed is several dialects of the Chinese language. Chen’s particular dialect, Fuzhou, proved problematic as finding a translator who could both understand and communicate in the dialect was difficult.

“Throughout my proceedings in this case I was never afforded the correct interpreter for me,” wrote Chen in his declaration to the court, filed May 14. He said his dialect is “significantly different” than Mandarin Chinese and, while he continued that he understood “about 75-80 percent of conversational Mandarin, I really did not understand the legal terminology when the interpreters conversed with me in Mandarin.”

Chen claims this ultimately led to him agreeing to plead guilty to the felony of manufacturing of a controlled substance.

Chen further said in his declaration his attorney, Karrie Young, whose office is in Cosmopolis, did not spend significant time discussing the possibility of deportation as a result of his plea. “In fact,” he said in court documents, “Ms. Young told me, from my limited understanding in Mandarin, that there was ‘little to no’ chance of me facing any immigration consequences from my guilty plea.”

Young was not available for comment Tuesday.

Chen is being represented by Terence K. Wong, an attorney with offices in Newcastle. He wrote the court, in part, “Here, Chen is moving for the withdrawal based upon an obvious manifest of justice that led to Chen pleading guilty without the use of a Fuzhou interpreter at any stage of his case and the ineffective counsel Chen had when he was not properly advised of the actual possibility that he would be detained for possible deportation as a direct result of Chen’s plea of guilty in this court.”

Trick continues to try to gather the seven transcripts from the initial drug case. As of June 15, he had received only one of them from the court.

“In the present case, the court will need to determine from the record whether the defendant was informed of the risk of deportation,” wrote Trick in his response. “If the court is able to determine from the record that Mr. Chen was informed of his chances of deportation, then he is not entitled to withdraw his guilty plea.”

The Green Jade Operation served more than 50 warrants on suspected illegal marijuana growing facilities operated by what the Sheriff’s Office has said is an organized crime ring based in China, targeting the very lucrative East Coast black market’s demand for marijuana.

Spearheaded by the Grays Harbor County Drug Task Force, the operation brought in dozens of officers from Grays Harbor, Thurston, King and surrounding counties, and federal agencies such as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and resulted in the confiscation of an estimated $80 million in marijuana in its first few days, more than $400,000 in gold bars and cash, 26 vehicles and marijuana growing equipment. The Chinese nationals involved with the grow operations were buying homes with cash to use for the illegal manufacturing operation.