Parents and lawyers, Jill and Kent Easter, allegedly sought to destroy PTA mom, Kelli Peters.
Summary: Two lawyers, who bizarrely sought to frame a PTA mom, were ordered to pay $5.7 million in damages.
A jury awarded an Orange County woman $5.7 million in her case against two ex-attorneys. The former PTA president alleged that the ex-attorneys framed her by planting drugs in her car.
The O.C. Register reports that a jury deliberated for less than an hour before deciding that Kent Easter and his now ex-wife, Jill, acted with “malice, oppression or fraud” when they planted drugs in Kelli Peters’ car in February 2011.
The jury awarded $2.1 million in compensatory damages and $3.7 million in punitive damages.
“This was really not about money, this was about standing up to people that pick on other people and telling them it’s not OK to do this,” Peters said.
Kelli Peters cries in court. Photo courtesy of ABC News.
According to the O.C. Register, the problems began on February 16, 2010 when Peters met Jill Easter for the first time. Easter was upset that her 7-year-old-son was not waiting for her in front of the school for pickup. Peters said the kid may have been “slow to line up” which Easter mistook as a diss on her son’s intelligence.
Taking her perceived slight to another level, Easter tried to get Peters fired from her volunteer position and she said Peters stalked her and her son. Jill’s then-husband Kent Easter even called the cops, saying that Peters drove erratically in the school parking lot. Authorities say he gave a false name and spoke in an Indian accent.
But the story got worse when marijuana, Vicodin and Percocet were found in Peters’ car. Peters was detained for two hours, and she testified that the experience caused her extreme emotional pain and humiliation.
The drugs were found to be planted by the Easters. Kent Easter was convicted of felony false imprisonment in 2014, and Jill pleaded guilty to the same charge. Kent’s license was suspended and the State Bar website lists he is “not eligible to practice law.” Jill was disbarred in 2014.
Kent Easter graduated from Stanford undergraduate and UCLA for law school. Jill Easter graduated from University of Southern California-Berkeley for undergrad and law school. Both represented themselves in court, and despite or maybe because of their arguments, the jury found they had a “lack of remorse.
A week before the trial, Kent filed for bankruptcy, but the bankruptcy does not protect against this particular court judgment.
Jill Easter has since changed her name to Ava Everheart.
Peters was represented by Rob Marcereau.
Source: The O.C. Register