Irvine Couple Charged With Planting Drugs In School Volunteer's Car

An Irvine couple was arrested Tuesday for allegedly trying to get an elementary school parent volunteer arrested by planting drugs in her car.

Kent Wycliffe Easter, 38, and Jill Bjorkholm Easter, 38, are charged with conspiring to get the volunteer arrested and jailed. They are also accused of conspiring to file a fake crime report.

The husband and wife, both attorneys, were taken into custody Tuesday by the Irvine Police Department on $20,000 bail.

According to the Orange County District Attorney's office, in 2010 Jill Easter became angry with a parent volunteer at the elementary school in Irvine where her son was a student. Jill Easter believed the volunteer was not properly supervising the Easters' son, according to the OCDA.

In the early hours of Feb. 16, 2011, the OCDA alleges that intending to retaliate against the volunteer, Kent Easter drove to her home and planted a bag of Vicodin, Percocet, marijuana, and a used marijuana pipe behind the driver's seat of her unlocked vehicle.

According to the OCDA, Kent Easter intentionally left the drugs in plain sight. As he drove to and from the volunteer's home, the Easters were allegedly in constant phone and text message contact, police said.

Kent Easter called the Irvine Police Department that afternoon, and under a fake name and number told a dispatcher that he had seen erratic driver park at the elementary school, according to police.

He said he saw the volunteer, who he named, hide a bag of drugs behind her driver's seat in her car, according to the OCDA. He also described the volunteer's car to the dispatcher, including its license plate number.

According to the OCDA, the Easters called and texted each other immediately before and after Kent Easter called the police.

Irvine police officers responded to Kent Easter's call and found the bag of drugs in the volunteer's vehicle. The volunteer, who was detained by police for about two hours, said that the drugs did not belong to her and she did not know how they ended up in her car. She agreed to a search of her home, which did not turn up any evidence of drug use or possession, polie said.

Once police discovered the volunteer had been in a classroom at the time Kent Easter claimed to have seen her hide drugs in her car, they began investigating whether the drugs had been planted.

The investigation led to the Easters, including surveillance video of Kent Easter from a Newport Beach hotel near where he worked, from which police allege he placed the Feb. 16 call to police.

The Easters were arrested on $20,000 bail. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of three years in state prison.