That pot planting proved pretty pricey.
A jury awarded a former PTA president in California $5.7 million in damages Friday for an attempted framing by two irate parents, who put marijuana in her car as revenge for a school spat.
The jury deliberated for less than an hour before granting the whopping sum to Kelli Peters, the Orange County Register reported. The now-divorced couple behind the revenge scheme — Kent Easter and Jill Easter, both of whom were lawyers — will have to pay nearly $4 million of the amount themselves.
Peters wiped away tears after hearing the verdict, saying it finally ended a bizarre five-year legal saga.
“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,” she said in court.
“I feel like justice has been served.”
The rivalry ignited in 2010, after Jill confronted Peters because Jill’s son, then 7, was not waiting for her outside Plaza Vista School in Irvine one day to get picked up. Peters told Jill her son was “a little slow” in getting outside — which the mom interpreted as an insult to the boy’s intelligence, according to OC Weekly.
Their conflict escalated for a year, with Jill accusing Peters of stalking her son and demanding Peters be removed from her post. The school said it found no evidence of wrongdoing from Peters, and never took action against her.
So in 2011, Jill and Kent hatched what they believed to be a brilliant plot. They planted marijuana and prescription pills in Peters’ car. Then Kent called the cops, using a fake name and Indian accent, and blew in Peters for supposed erratic driving on school grounds.
The call led to Peters being detained for police questioning for about two hours, with her daughter seeing the whole thing.
“I was crying and begging for him to not put the drugs on the car, because people would see it,” Peters said during her trial against the conniving couple.
“Everybody was looking at me and I felt very humiliated.”
She was never charged for any crime.
The Easters accused Peters of exaggerating her distress to try cashing in on the incident. But Kent still sheepishly confessed to the phoned-in crime.
When asked in court if he planted the drugs on Peters, he replied: “Very stupidly, and unfortunately, yes.”
Kent declared bankruptcy a week before the trial started, the Register reported. His law license has now been suspended, while his former wife has been disbarred. Kent defended himself, saying he didn’t have the money for an attorney.
