Attorney Who Framed PTA Mom for Drugs Insists She's the Victim

Don’t let the guilty plea fool you, Newport Beach attorney turned convict told the world on an episode of the ‘Dr. Phil’ show Wednesday.

Disbarred and convicted of planting drugs on a volunteer and PTA mom at her son’s elementary school, Jill Easter told Dr. Phil McGraw she wanted to clear her name in the bizarre scandal that captured headlines around the world. She declared her innocence.

It didn’t go well.

In the “Schoolyard Setup” episode, McGraw interviewed Easter as well as District Attorney Tony Rackauckas and Easter’s victim Kelli Peters.

“She’s been called the mom from hell, but Jill Easter says everyone has the facts all wrong,” McGraw said by way of introduction. Easter and her husband were both convicted for their roles in planting drugs in Peter's’ car and filing a false police report against Peters after a year-long feud over Easter’s son not being lined up for pickup in a timely manner one day after school. In a civil lawsuit, the Easters were ordered to pay Peters $5.7 million.

Easter, who changed her name to Ava Everheart following the conviction, denied having anything to do with the scheme to plant drugs and having police search Peters’ car outside their children’s elementary school.

She refused to answer McGraw’s questions about how her DNA got on the drugs found in her longtime nemesis’ car, why her cell phone tracker pinged near Peters’ car the night before the drugs were found, or why she pleaded guilty to the crime.

Easter insisted she was the one set up

“There is information out there that really would have helped me that was purposefully suppressed,” Easter insisted.

According to McGraw, she claimed she was coerced into confessing and that key documents were withheld from her during the court case.

Rackauckas scoffed at the notion.

“I think that’s what’ happening here is that she just doesn’t have anywhere to go,” Rackauckas said. “She wants to try to portray herself as innocent, and so she’s making these things up to try to do that.”

Peters was even more direct.

“She’s nuts. I am not a doctor, but even I knew it the day I met her,” Peters said. Does she think she’s smarter than everyone? She needs to own it man, she got busted.”

According to Peters, the Easters set out on a yearlong campaign to terrorize her, following her, filing numerous lawsuits against her, handing out flyers calling her an abuser.

“They just went on to torture me for a really long time,” she said. “What she did ruined me."

It all culminated when police searched her car in front of Plaza Vista Elementary and found a huge stash of drugs in her back seat. Peters said she, her husband and daughter experienced post traumatic stress from the ordeal.

At the end of the day, Peters is a survivor, said McGraw.

“You flipped the script,” he told her. “Give yourself credit for that. They wound up paying the price not you.”