Kelli Peters testifies in Kent Easter's 2014 criminal trial. ABC News 
 
 UPDATE, FEB. 5, 7:43 P.M.: A civil jury has awarded $5.7 million to PTA mom Kelli Peters and her family in their lawsuit against Kent Easter and his ex-wife, Ava Everheart, City News Service reports. The Weekly will break it all down Monday morning. 
 
 ORIGINAL POST, FEB. 5, 6:33 A.M.: The Weekly recently reported that diabolical drug planting ex-lawyers Kent and Jill Easter were poised to screw over PTA mom Kelli Peters yet again. 
 
 That notion was further cemented during the opening of the trial in Peters' lawsuit against the former couple. 
 
 For one, we reported that Jill Easter, who legally changed her name to Eva Everheart, may not even attend the trial as a recent post on her Facebook revealed she was in Havana, Cuba (as well as in a new relationship). 
 
 Sure enough, she was absent the first day of the trial. 
 
 Second, we reported that Kent Easter first agreed to pay $12,000 a month in child and spousal support in his divorce settlement and then declared bankruptcy—setting the stage to plead poverty should Peters prevail in her emotional distress lawsuit and be awarded monetary damages. 
 
 Sure enough, based on Paul Anderson's crackerjack reporting for City News Service, here is what Kent Easter's lawyer said during the trial's opening. 
 
 "While it was disgusting and shouldn't have happened to [Peters],'' punitive damages should not be awarded. 
 
 The original booking photos of Kent Easter and Jill Easter (now Ava Everheart). Orange County District Attorney's office 
 
 Oh, forgot to mention: Kent Easter, who was disbarred whose law license was suspended in California due to his criminal conviction, is representing himself in the lawsuit against him. (Jill Easter was disbarred.) 
 
 "You'll hear evidence how I've already been punished," Kent Easter said. "I'm here representing myself because I can't afford an attorney. ... I have 
 
 three children to support and you'll hear I won't be able to pay any punitive damages." 
 
 He noted he lost his job with one of the county's most prestigious law firms and can no longer practice law, "So this is my last jury trial. And as a felon I'm disqualified from most jobs." He's now a freelance legal consultant, and it's questionable how that will allow him to come up with 12 grand a month, let alone however much a jury might award Peters. 
 
 For those who might have missed our coverage, the Easters' war on Peters began in 2010, when Jill showed up to Plaza View School in Irvine to pick up her then first grader son, but he was missing from the lineup of students. When the mom asked Peters, the parent volunteer tasked with rounding up the kids for their rides home, why her son had not been there waiting for her, Peters replied he was "a little slow"—as in tardy catching up with the other children. But Jill Easter took it as Peters saying her child was slow mentally. 
 
 A simple misunderstanding led to a yearlong campaign by the Easters—lawyers both—to get Peters fired. They complained that Peters had their son locked in the school and demanded she be fired from her volunteer position. 
 
 School officials determined Peters did nothing wrong. 
 
 Jill Easter then stood in front of the school handing out fliers to parents demanding Peters' dismissal for all sorts of misdeeds. 
 
 That did not work. 
 
 The couple filed a police report against Peters. 
 
 That went nowhere. 
 
 They sought a restraining order against Peters for allegedly stalking their son. 
 
 Denied. 
 
 They tried to sue Peters. 
 
 As that was going nowhere, it was dropped. 
 
 And so, the night of Feb. 15, 2011, the couple planted a bag filled with a marijuana pipe, Vicodin and Percocet behind the driver's seat in Peters' car, and the next day Kent Easter, posing as a neighbor, called police to say he saw Peters drive erratically to the school and that she might have drugs in her car. 
 
 An Irvine police officer arrived at the school, saw the bag in the car, fetched Peters, took her to her car and had her open the bag. A dumbfounded Peters was briefly detained, questioned and when things weren't adding up, the cop asked who might do something like this to her. 
 
 Peters immediately identified the couple who had terrorized her for a year. 
 
 The Easters were arrested and Jill went on to plead guilty, Kent was convicted in a second trial after his first ended in a mistrial and both received jail time, probation and orders to perform community service. 
 
 During his 2013 trial Kent indicated he had separated from his wife, who had acknowledged an extramarital affair during her own prosecution, but their divorce settlement filed last month states they separated in December 2015. 
 
 Peters, her husband and their daughter, who is now 15, are seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages from Easter and Everheart, who can still be on the hook even if she does not participate in the trial. 
 
 "This case is about justice"—the justice Kelli Peters and her family have been waiting for for four years, their attorney, Rob Marcereau, says in Anderson's report from the trial's opening day. 
 
 "Kent Easter and his wife planned and schemed to destroy the life of Kelli Peters for a year," Marcereau told jurors. "You're going to hear how they tore Kelli Peters' life apart. ... You're going to hear the Easters don't like getting no for an answer." 
 
 He said Peters was "humiliated" in front of her daughter and the rest of the school as she was "forced to sit on a curb like a criminal as police searched her car." The stress became so awful for the family, their daughter could not sleep alone and she had to transfer to another school, Marcereau said. 
 
 "The point of all this is how much money the Peters' should get," Easter said in his opening remarks, acknowledging that "something bad was done to the Peters, but it doesn't give them a winning Powerball number." 
 
 Easter predicted jurors would hear "exaggerations and embellishments" about Peters' encounter with police, which he sought to downplay by noting the PTA mom was not put in a squad car, did not have her mugshot taken, did not spend time behind bars and was "quickly cleared." 
 
 ||||| A jury on Friday awarded $5.7 million to a former PTA president framed by an Irvine couple, apparently enraged by a schoolyard comment, who planted drugs in her car. 
 
 The Orange County Superior Court jury deliberated for less than hour before finding that Kent Easter and his ex-wife, Jill Easter, acted with malice, oppression or fraud when they planted bags of marijuana, Vicodin and Percocet in Kelli Peters’ car in February 2011. 
 
 The jury awarded $2.1 million in compensatory damages to Peters and her family. In addition, Kent Easter is required to pay $1.5 million in punitive damages, while Jill Easter, who now goes by the name Ava Everheart, must pay $2.1 million. 
 
 Wiping away tears, Peters said the verdict brought closure to years of emotional turmoil. 
 
 “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. “I feel like justice has been served.” 
 
 The conflict began over a school dispute over the Easters then-7-year-old son. 
 
 Peters, a former PTA president and volunteer at Plaza Vista School in Irvine, had her first run-in with Jill Easter on Feb. 16, 2010. Easter was upset that her son wasn’t in front of the school when she came to pick him up. 
 
 Peters testified that she told Jill Easter that her son may have been “slow to line up,” a comment Easter apparently mistook as an insult against her son’s intelligence. 
 
 The conflict escalated as Jill Easter tried to have Peters dismissed from her school volunteer job and claimed that Peters was stalking her and her son. 
 
 A year after the initial confrontation, Kent Easter called police, using a false name and speaking in an Indian accent, saying Peters had been driving erratically in the school parking lot, authorities said. 
 
 Officers searched Peters’ car and found bags of marijuana and pills that were later determined to have been planted by the Easters – both former attorneys who attended prestigious law schools. 
 
 Peters was detained and questioned by police for about two hours at the school, causing extreme emotional pain and humiliation, she testified during the three-day trial. 
 
 “I was crying and begging for him to not put the drugs on the car, because people would see it,” Peters said, recalling that her daughter was watching. “Everybody was looking at me and I felt very humiliated.” 
 
 Kent Easter, a Stanford-educated attorney who once worked at one of the county’s top law firms, was convicted of felony false imprisonment in 2014 and spent 87 days in jail. Jill Easter pleaded guilty to the same charge and spent about 60 days behind bars. 
 
 Kent Easter, who represented himself in the civil trial, declined comment. Jill Easter, who also represented herself, was not present in court for the verdict. Kent Easter’s law license has been suspended, while Jill Easter was disbarred 
 
 Kent Easter claimed innocence throughout his criminal trial and a recent deposition. He acknowledged during his testimony on Thursday that he was “backpedaling,” saying he also planned to drop an ongoing appeal of his criminal conviction. 
 
 “You planted drugs in Kelli Peters’ car and tried to get her arrested?” asked Rob Marcereau, Peters’ attorney. 
 
 “Very stupidly, and unfortunately, yes,” Kent Easter replied. 
 
 Kent Easter, however, contended that Peters was “exaggerating and embellishing” the amount of harassment she suffered – to gain a financial reward. 
 
 “The fact that something really bad was done to a person does not give them a winning Powerball number,” he told the jury. 
 
 Marcereau, after the verdict, said jurors saw through the Easters’ “lack of remorse.” 
 
 “These people thought they were above the law and the jury acted accordingly,” he said. 
 
 Though Kent Easter declared bankruptcy about a week before the trial, Marcereau said the debts from the awards for emotional distress, false imprisonment and punitive damages are not dischargable in bankruptcy. 
 
 Peters said the Easters have never shown remorse for their actions. 
 
 “I think saying sorry goes a long way; it would have gone a long way with me in the beginning,” Peters said. “I wouldn’t have gone this far had they said they were sorry.” 
 
 Contact the writer: kpuente@ocregister.com, 714-834-3773
– A Southern California couple has been ordered to pay $5.7 million in damages to the former PTA president they tried to frame by planting drugs in her car and calling the police (using a faux Indian accent). It took a jury less than an hour to find that Kent Easter and his now ex-wife Jill Easter—both former lawyers—acted with malice, oppression, or fraud in February 2011 when they stashed pot, Vicodin, and Percocet in Kelli Peters' car, the Orange County Register reports. "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," an emotional Peters tells the Register. "I feel like justice has been served." The attempt to frame Peters was the culmination of a yearlong campaign to get her dismissed as a volunteer at Plaza Vista School in Irvine. It all started in February 2010 when Jill Easter was upset that her son wasn't waiting in front of the school at pick-up time. Peters testified that she said the 7-year-old may have been "slow to line up." Perceiving an insult to her son's intelligence, Jill Easter (now calling herself Ava Everheart) became enraged. Here's a rundown, according to OC Weekly, of the Easters' actions: They claimed Peters had locked their son in the school. Jill Easter distributed fliers at school outlining Peters' fictitious misdeeds. They filed a police report against her. They claimed Peters was stalking their son. They filed an unsuccessful lawsuit against her. Kent Easter was ultimately sentenced to 87 days in jail in the drug-planting incident, while Jill Easter got 60 days. During the recent civil trial, Kent Easter claimed that Peters was exaggerating her level of distress (she was detained at the school for some two hours while parents, students, and her daughter watched). "The fact that something really bad was done to a person does not give them a winning Powerball number," he told the jury.