A wealthy Orange County couple’s twisted plot to frame the PTA president at their son’s school on trumped-up drug charges is exposed in a new true crime series.
It will premiere March 14 on Sundance TV. True Crime Story: Smugshot It highlights authorized criminals and the illegal acts they thought they could and should carry out.
The first episode, titled Revenge of the PTA Mom, centers on Jill Easter, now known as Ava Everheart, and her ex-husband, Kent Easter, a pair of lawyers who waged a war with school volunteer Kelli Peters before placing drugs in his car.
“This case was crazy from the beginning,” civil attorney Rob Marcereau says in the docu-series.
Jill Easter, now known as Ava Everheart, and her ex-husband, Kent Easter, served time in prison after planting drugs in the car of Kelli Peters, the PTA president at their son’s school.
Peters (photos) talks about the couple’s attempts to get her fired as a school volunteer and jailed for a schoolyard fight in an upcoming episode of True Crime Story: Smugshot.
Peters was a well-known school volunteer and PTA president at Plaza Vista School in Irvine, California, when she inadvertently crossed paths with Jill Easter on February 17, 2010.
The Easters’ six-year-old son, then a first-grader, was briefly locked outside the school under Peters’ watch.
The Easters, both lawyers, ruined their seemingly perfect lives with their twisted revenge plan.
Jill Easter felt her son was not properly supervised and yelled at Peters, who apologized and tried to calm the situation.
However, when he tried to explain that the child was slow to align, the mother took it as a slight to her son’s intelligence.
The next day, Jill Easter tried to get Peters fired, but when the school sided with the volunteer, the mother launched a year-long campaign against him.
She began handing out flyers that smeared Peters’ name, which she denied doing years later during an appearance on Dr. Phil.
In March 2010, the Easters sued the PTA president over their son’s inability to attend school, but the case was dismissed.
Jill Easter also filed police reports against Peters alleging that he was harassing her son. She attempted to get a restraining order against her, claiming that she was psychotic and unstable.
None of the accusations were substantiated and the request for a restraining order was denied.
“This case was crazy from the beginning,” civil attorney Rob Marcereau says in the docuseries, which premieres on Sundance TV March 14.
Jill Easters waged war against Peters, a volunteer at Plaza Vista School in Irvine, California, after her six-year-old son was accidentally excluded from school under her supervision in 2010.
“The fact that she was a lawyer scared me,” Peters recalls in the episode.
The feud came to a head on February 26, 2011, a year after Jill Easter first confronted Peters.
Law enforcement officers were called to the school following a report that Peters had been driving erratically in the parking lot.
A man, speaking with an Indian accent, told police he thought Peters had been high and had seen her place a package behind the driver’s seat.
When officers searched the car, they found a large amount of marijuana along with packets of Vicodin and Percocet.
Peters was then questioned in the parking lot with the drugs placed on the hood of her car as people left the school.
The Easters’ actions against Peters came to a head when they planted marijuana, Vicodin and Percocet in her car and attempted to arrest her on drug charges in 2011.
The Easters, who divorced after their crime, served prison time and were also ordered to pay $5.7 million in compensatory damages to Peters (pictured) and his family.
However, officers soon became suspicious of the call after Peters passed a curbside sobriety test and instead turned their attention to Easter.
It later emerged that the call to police had been made from a hotel next to Ken Easter’s law firm, which was close to the school, and CCTV showed him entering and making the call.
Cell phone data also showed that the Easters had been near Peters’ home, where the car was parked the night before the drugs were discovered. His DNA was later found on the drugs.
Jill Easter pleaded guilty to planting drugs and was sentenced to 120 days in jail, while Ken Easter fought the charges at trial but was found guilty after just 90 minutes of jury deliberations.
Ken Easter, a Stanford graduate, had his law license suspended and spent 87 days in jail, while Jill Easter was banned from practicing altogether and was behind bars for 60 days.
The couple, who divorced in the wake of his crime, were also ordered to pay $5.7 million in compensatory damages to Peters and his family.
True Crime Story: Smugshot premieres Thursday, March 14 at 10 pm ET/PT on SundanceTV, AMC+ and Sundance Now