SANTA ANA – An Irvine lawyer was convicted Wednesday of helping his wife plant drugs in the car of a school volunteer in what prosecutors say was a botched attempt at revenge spurred in part by a misunderstood comment about the couple’s son.

A jury found Kent Easter, 40, guilty of false imprisonment, a felony. He faces up to three years in prison.

After the verdict was read, Orange County Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals ordered Easter taken directly to jail. But Easter told the court he worries for the safety of his three children and wants to make arrangements for their care, and Goethals agreed to let Easter go home, saying the decision was “out of concern for nothing but your children.” Easter is scheduled to appear at a hearing Thursday afternoon.

Easter and his lawyer declined to comment as they left the courtroom.

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The story behind the crime began in 2010, when the Easters tried to have Kelli Peters dismissed from her volunteer role at Plaza Vista School in Irvine. Testimony suggested that Kent Easter’s wife, Jill Easter, thought her son, then 7, had been left unsupervised by Peters. She also mistook Peters’ comment about his being “slow” as a crack about his intelligence. Peters meant the boy was lagging behind other children while lining up.

Before dawn Feb. 16, 2011, prosecutors say, the Easters went together to Peters’ Irvine home, opened her unlocked car and planted Vicodin, Percocet, marijuana and a pipe behind her driver’s seat.

Later that day, Kent Easter called Irvine police and, using a false name and speaking in an Indian accent, reported that he’d seen someone driving erratically and with drugs in her car in the school parking lot.

He later admitted his report was false.

Peters, who also was the school’s PTA president, was detained and questioned by police for about two hours at the school.

Deputy District Attorney Chris Duff told jurors the only reason Peters didn’t go to jail is that an Irvine police officer believed her claims of innocence and decided to investigate further. The false imprisonment charges were based on the theory that the Easters’ actions led to Peters being detained.

Duff hopes the conviction is a relief for Peters, who he said has been through an “incredibly trying time.” Peters filed a civil lawsuit against the Easters in 2012 alleging infliction of emotional distress and false imprisonment. That case is pending.

Last week, Kent Easter testified that on the day Peters was detained, he had received a call at work from his wife, who excitedly told him that she’d seen Peters driving recklessly and taking pills in the school parking lot. Easter said he believed his wife, but hesitated when she asked him to report the incident to the police because she thought she wouldn’t be believed.

Easter said he made the call to placate his wife, saying he thought the call was “not something I was really interested in doing, but let’s get it done.”

Easter testified that he walked across the street from his Newport Beach office to the Island Hotel in Fashion Island, where he used a phone in the hotel’s business center to call police. He said he gave the police a fake name – one similar to a neighbor’s – because his wife insisted that the call not be traced to the Easter family.

“The verdict suggests that the jury didn’t believe Mr. Easter’s testimony, which causes me to believe they think he lied,” Goethals said after the verdict. “And I cannot say I disagree with that inference.”

Duff said Irvine police put 20 officers on the case and got a break when they found a call log at the Island Hotel that led them to Easter.

The lesson, Duff told jurors: “Don’t mess with Irvine.”

The defense argued that Jill Easter had the vendetta against Peters and tried to frame her husband for the crime. The defense also said the Easters’ marriage was falling apart and Jill Easter was engaged in an extramarital affair at the time in question. Jill Easter left her phone at home, the defense said, and took Kent Easter’s BlackBerry to Peters’ home while she planted the drugs.

Duff mocked that account, saying it defied common sense to think a woman hiding an affair from her husband would leave him her iPhone, later found to contain hundreds of intimate text message exchanges with her lover. Duff said Kent Easter’s testimony was a desperate effort to explain damning evidence.

That evidence was clear, Duff said: Kent Easter’s DNA was on the pills and the marijuana pipe in Peters’ car, and phone company records showed both Easters’ phones were near the victim’s home the morning of the crime.

Jill Easter pleaded guilty in October to felony false imprisonment and was sentenced to 120 days in jail and ordered to perform community service. She is now free and living with her children in Irvine. She also was an attorney, but her law license has been suspended because of the conviction.

A jury deadlocked 11-1 last year in favor of convicting Kent Easter. His second trial at times played out like a tawdry reality show, featuring testimony about Jill Easter’s secret yearlong affair with a married man and their infatuated text messages to each other.

“I was so overcome with love I had to hold my phone against my heart,” Jill Easter wrote in one text.

Duff told the jury the evidence about the affair was irrelevant, a “dog and pony show” meant to make jurors feel sorry for Kent Easter and paint Jill Easter in a bad light.

In a moment made for TV, the defense announced Monday it was calling Jill Easter as a surprise witness. She walked into court, but appeared not to hear the judge’s questions, staring straight ahead while speaking haltingly and saying she needed an interpreter.

Goethals appeared angry and left the bench, ordering Jill Easter’s former lawyer and a sign-language interpreter brought to court. Lawyer Paul Meyer told the judge that Jill Easter was willing to testify, but only if she were provided a screen with real-time transcripts of the trial. An interpreter wasn’t good enough, Meyer said.

Goethals said witnesses can’t dictate the terms of their testimony. Kent Easter’s lawyer, Thomas Bienert, then said he didn’t want to call her to the stand after all because of her behavior. Kent Easter had testified his wife had some hearing problems, but there was no evidence she was deaf.

On Wednesday, Goethals referred to “that show she put on here the other day” and said he suspected Jill Easter’s behavior was a bid to manipulate the court.

Contact the writer: 949-229-5950 or ehartley@ocregister.com