SANTA ANA – The arraignment Monday of an Irvine couple accused of planting drugs in the car of an unsuspecting school volunteer who they thought was not properly supervising their son was continued to Aug. 23.

Kent Wycliffe Easter, 38, and Jill Bjorkholm Easter, 39, are charged with conspiracy to procure the false arrest of the elementary-school parent volunteer, false imprisonment and conspiracy to falsely report a crime.

The Easters appeared in court, with their individual attorneys, but declined to comment to the media afterwards.

Beginning in February 2011, the Easters conspired to have the volunteer arrested because Jill Easter was angry over the supervision of their young son, according to prosecutors. Kent Easter then drove to the woman’s home on Feb. 16, 2011, and placed a bag of Vicodin, Percocet and marijuana and a used marijuana pipe behind the driver’s seat of her unlocked vehicle, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

The drugs, prosecutors said, were visible from outside the vehicle. The Easters were in constant cellphone and text message contact as Kent Easter – a lawyer – drove to and from the woman’s home, prosecutors said.

A short time later, Kent Easter called Irvine police on a non-emergency line, gave a false name and phone number, and told the dispatcher that he was a concerned parent who had witnessed an erratic driver park her car at the elementary school, according to prosecutors. He also identified the volunteer by name and claimed to have witnessed her hide a bag of drugs behind her driver’s seat, prosecutors said.

When Irvine police officers arrived at the school, they found the car described in the phone call and saw the bag of drugs by looking through the window, prosecutors said. An officer contacted the woman on campus and she consented to a search of her car, police said, and then adamantly denied that the drugs were hers and insisted she did not know how they ended up in her car.

The volunteer was detained by police for two hours until the investigating officers determined that she was in a classroom at the time the caller claimed to have seen her hiding the drugs behind her driver’s seat, prosecutors said. She also consented to a search of her home, which showed no evidence to support drug use or possession.

Irvine detectives investigated the possibility that someone planted the drugs in the woman’s car and discovered that the call that alerted them was placed by Kent Easter from a phone in a business center of a Newport Beach hotel, according to prosecutors. The hotel’s surveillance cameras captured images of him at the time the call was placed, prosecutors said.

Kent Easter has been an active member of the State Bar of California since 1998. Jill Easter was also admitted to the Bar in 1998, but her legal license was changed to voluntary inactive eight years ago.

If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of three years in prison.

Editor’s note: This article was updated Dec. 19, 2012 to clarify the status of Jill Easter’s legal license.