Thursday, June 21, 2012

Police: Couple plants drugs on PTA leader

Police say Kent and Jill Easter's belief that their son wasn't being properly supervised at school led them to plant drugs on the PTA president.

A California couple unhappy with the PTA president at their son's elementary school took an unusual approach to rectify their problem, police say.

Kent and Jill Easter, both 38 and attorneys, were arrested Tuesday in Irvine after being accused of planting drugs in the car of the Plaza Vista School PTA president Kelli Peters because they believed she was not properly supervising their son, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Both are charged with one felony count of conspiracy to procure false arrest and charging, false imprisonment, and conspiracy to report a false crime.


Irvine police said Kent Easter drove to Peters home in February and planted a bag of marijuana, along with a pipe and prescription pills in the backseat of her unlocked car.

He then called police under a false name a little while later and said that the woman had been driving erratically near their son's school and claimed to see her put the drugs in the car's backseat.

Police arrived at the school and saw the drugs in plain view inside the car, and then contacted the Peters, who was inside. After consenting to a search of her car, she said the drugs weren't hers and denied knowing where they came from.

After detaining her for two hours, police determined she was in a classroom at the time the call was made to police.

Peters then consented to a search of her home. 

Investigators saw nothing in the home to support drug use or possession, so they began investigating whether the drugs had been planted. 

After further investigation, police said, they determined that Easter made the call from a hotel near where he worked and was recorded on the hotel video surveillance system.

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They say Easter was in constant contact with his wife during the incident. 

The incident goes back to 2010 when Easter filed a civil complaint with the Orange County Superior Court alleging that his son, who was in first grade at the time, was in an after-school tennis program when Peters locked him out of the school for 19 minutes, the Times reported. 

The newspaper reported that when Jill Easter asked why Peters locked the child out, Peters said that he took too long to line up with the other children and it was too hard to wait for him. 

The paper reported that a tennis instructor found the child crying and trying to open the door to the building. 

Jill Easter then filed a restraining order against Peters alleging that she was harassing Easter's son and had threatened her, the Times reported. The civil case was dismissed and the request for the restraining order was denied. 

Kent Easter is a member of the state bar association and Jill Easter was admitted in 1998, but her license has expired. 

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