showing a harrowing look at the vigilante groups taking on meth manufacturers there. >> the nissan ring with the power and performance of our intuitive all-wheel drive. now get a $189 per month lease >> number one in just 60 lease a 2016 lincoln mkx for $399 a monthur lincoln dealer. good evening. thank you for joining us. both can have dangerous and real-life consequences. that's what happened to a pta president in california who found herself targeted and framed by a angry parents sparked by a single word. she tells abc's chris connelly how her life has not been the same ever since.uit. it's finally all over. >> reporter: victoria peters can finally smile. after nearly six years ofegal torment. a jury awarding her $5.7 million in damages from the scheming, vindictive couple once out to destroy this pta mom's good it was awful. i mean, it just -- it crushed me. and deep inside i was just -- i was just dying. you know, dying. >> what doespresent to you? >> years of hard labor, stress, you know. changes. that stress, those terrible changes, and this saga, began in 2010 at plaza advice sa stool. kelli was a parent volunteer supervising after-school pickup. as this woman, attorney jill , to get easter's young son, when the first grader wasn't there on off on kelli. >> i said, i am so sorry, he didn't line up fast enough, maybe he just walked slow. >> reporter: for jill easter, and later her husband kent, who's an attorney as well, that word "slow" would a find of bad parenting nuclear bomb that would exact a spectacular toll. >> i believe mrs. peters said you're being slow, liken line, and i think the easters took it as their son was being mentally slow. >> reporter: jill easter's words to kelli grew increasingly>> i said, i'm done. and that made her very angry. she lost her mind over it. i turned my back and she will get you!" >> reporter: the easters waged a campaign against kelli, making wild accusations, handing out flyers, demanding she be fired from her >> they attempted to have me removed from the school, removed from any irvine school, banished. >> reporter: the school's investigation backed kelli 100%. that was when things started to really get weird. on a school day in 2011, as kent easter made al to irvine police using an alias and a phoney accent. >> just had to go over to the school, i saw a car driving very i'm concerned one of the parent volunteers there may be under the influence or using drugs. >> what's your last name? uncleli for a bogus bust. the cops discovering these illicit items in her car. >> a bag of marijuanaotruding. >> they put it on the police car for everybody to see. which was really hard. because i kept thinking, my daughter's getting out any minute. and i'm just thinking -- the whole world is looking at this right now. please, they're not mine, i swear to you they're not mine. >> reporter: she was right. they weren't hers. tests showed the easters' dna on the marijuana pipe found incar. the phone call? police traced it to this newport beach hotel. not where you'd spot erratic driving in irvine. and that mantel surveillance video. kent easter. >> when the police were able to determine that the defendant's law firm was next door, the pieces started to come them. >> reporter: kelli was cleared. police gathering evidence indicating the easters had planted the drugs and night before. >> the case of an charged with planting -- >> reporter: the easters were each charged with false imprisonment for trying to set kelli up. jill copped a plea and was 120 days. kent easter wanted to go to trial, forcing kelli to relive her trauma and anguish on the stand.ttorney painted him as jill's hapless stooge. >> a husband trying to appease a difficult wife. >> reporter: new evidence, this e-mail from jill to kent, a honey-do list from as legal assignment for kent and wants them done in 24 hours. exhaust the criminal code against kelli. file suits against the school , and whomever else we possibly can, tomorrow. then a bizarre twist. jill easter appearing as a surprise witness for kent.ever actually testifying. claiming she'd gone deaf. sentenced to 180 days. but the toll of the whole ordeal left kelli kind of justice at a civil trial. >> you know, that was hard for me to want to do. why would i go through another trial? but -- principle. i mean -- i needed to get out there, get my story told, stick up for myself. >> reporter: she sued the as forced to endure extreme distress, fear, and public humiliation. still, kent easter remained defiant as this exclusive deposition sir, did you knowingly participate in a scheme with your wife to frame kelli peters? >> no.ou maintain that you are innocent? of framing kelli peters for drug possession? >> yes. >> okay. just said, you know what, i did it, i screwed up, i regret it, i'm sorry? wouldn't that feel good just to say that? >> this is a therapy session or a deposition? what would shrink at trial though would be kent easter's resolve. as he admitted at last to planting those illicit drugs. >> how did you respond tos willing to say that he had done what he'd always denied doing? >> not only that, he also said, thing to my that made me start crying. that was more important than anything, i think, i'd heardmouth, ever. >> he tried to fall on his sword and say, well, i admit it, i did it. and i think the jury saw throughr: the jury sided with kelli, taking just a few hours to reward her $5.7 million in she was vicinity ndicated. that number is vindication for her. divorcing and kent easter file fog bankruptcy, any collection of that judgment might go a is word -- slow. but kelli peters is exultant nonetheless. >> why was it worth going through the civil gh you're not sure if you'll see any money from the easters? >> i think it was really important to face these people. it was kind of like having a little i feel like they thought they were smarter than everybody, and we needed to go in there and prove who the smartood people were. they just can't get away with stuff like that. >> you've got healing still to do? >> yeah, but i have to heal fast. i need to get out and work. >> fresh start? >> fresh start, eporter: for "nightline," i'm chris connelly in irvine, california. next, the vigilante groups taking up arms against drugxico. a tumultuous tale told in the "cartel land." unced. ford explorer...edge...escape... and expedition... are available with 0% financing for 60 months. help you be unstoppable. no wonder ford is america's best selling brand. but hurry, 0% financing for 60 months limited time offer. 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[ applause ] the what?! the global market in illicit drugs has turned into modern war. and ground zero is mexico. drug cartels battle authorities and each other. tonight an up-close look atus costs of this war as vigilante groups take on the cartels. a story told on the oscar-nominated documentary "cartel 's abc's matt gutman. >> reporter: brewing in that barrel is the stuff of war. it's meth. mexican jungle. theng process and the shoot-outs that ensue in a war to control the drug trade, just some of the rarely seen images blasted at you in the ted documentary "cartel land." it's a chilling look into mexico's drug war. a war so brutal, just this week the pope made an emotional plea to mexico's youth to resisttation of the cartels and pray for the victims of this deadly battle. >> this is war that's happening in the country just south of us. war in which 100,000 people have been killed since is a car that we're responsible for. >> reporter: filmmaker matthew heineman spent nine months in a to bring the war home to us. cartels supply as much as 80% of all meth sold in the u.s. been this fight for power in this area. >> reporter: and a large portion of it cooked up by the knights templar cartel. their extortion, kidnappings, torture, and murder. the cartel wielded almost complete control for over a decade. so much grief and injustice, so little government action, that citizens decided to fight back. in 2013, organizin a vigilante group called the alter defenses, or se larger than life small-town doctor, jose manuel morales. heineman was there to captures of this their goal, to take down cartel members one by one. asrows larger and more powerful, heineman discovers this is not just a story about good against evil -- >> i came away no difference between the knights templar and the defenses. they use the same means, murder, extortion -- >> there are definitely membersperate that way. but not everyone was like that. everybody's trying to protect their villages or their towns. what was power corrupted. >> reporter: that evil whipping up increasing violence from which not even the documentarian was imm a target of the cartel? >> there's countless times when i was surrounded by people, threatened. there's many, many close calls and scary moments.nment issued an ultimatum to the vigilantes. pledge allegiance to the or go to jail. fearing prosecution, mostred and were rearmed. but morales holds believes the government itself has been corrupted by the cartels. >> the very institutions that are there to protect them either weren't there, or they were working in collaboration, direct cartels. >> reporter: u.s. authorities say it's widespread corruption that makes this the drug war so difficult to fight. last july thes called into question when narco king man el chapo cause ut of this prison in mexico city through an underground tunnel built into his cell, what many pulled off with help from the inside. months later authorities reportedly tracking him to this seen here this video released by the melks can el chapo outsmarted the mexican marines by slipping away through this mirrored wall, designed for this exact moment. >> it's incredible that right ou that mirror is this perfectly constructed secret passageway. we're going to go down the stairs here. it led to a tunnel and then the. hundreds of yards el chapo and his lieutenant crawled through here, you can't event high, extremely claustrophobic. you can tell why they came out of here looking so feltsdy. he was finally caught and sent back to jail but not without he weaknesses of mexican law enforcement in the face of the cartels. and they rely on tunnels, not just as escape routes but also as smuggling routes. but it only has to be comfortable enough to do one thing -- smuggle drugs fast. uncovered more than 180 tunnels along the order with mexico. the cartels smuggle not just underground but over it too. brazenly muling across the the cartel scouts keep getting away. in "cartel land" we meet another armed vigilante groupe of the border. arizona border recon is led by tim nailer foley. >> once i learned how the cartels pretty much control both the human smuggling and the drug we shifted our primary goal to keep cartel activity out of the country. >> reporter: which is why initially foley order of defense 1,000 miles to the south. >> they're taking back what is theirs from the cartel and it's nice to see they're standing up and going back at them. >> reporter: but "cartel land" t power corrupts. the film showing that over time, he was ultimately arrested on gun charges and taken to jail where he has a year and a half without trial. when he heard "cartel land" was nominated for an oscar, morales sent heineman thisg from jail. >> translator: i'm grateful for the noble gesture you had in making this documentary movie, that you had to suffer with me daytona in the battles we all enduredeporter: as those battles continue, the chefs keep cooking up addiction and sending it northward.eart of this is america's voracious appetite for drugs. you know, it's basics of supply and demand. as long as there's a demand for drugs up here, there will be ags coming from mexico and south america. until that stops all this violence that comes with it won't stop. >> reporter: for "nightline" i'm will win the golden statue at the oscars february 28th right here on abc. stars share their at disneyland's 60th birthday bash. the bold nissan rogue, with intuitive all-wheel drive.ds a hero. now get a $189 per month lease on the 2016 nissan rogue. finally tonight, 60 years ago disneyland was born. there's no place happier to stays, singing, dancing, even sharing memories about the magic. the happiest place on earth is turning 60. >> the most famouson in the world -- >> reporter: walt disney's very opened in anaheim, california in 1955. now iconic characters and stars are parent company disney's diamond anniversary. "dancing with the stars" derek hough is master of ceremonies. >> we had this entirend hundreds of dancers. it's going to be big. >> reporter: even the year's hottest droid bb8 will be in g with musical numbers. "be like you" from "the jungle book." walk like you talk like you >> reporter: the song guaranteed to get stuck in your head for another 60 years, "let it go." let it go let it go >> reporter: be sure not to miss the wonderful world of disney, disneyland 60, thisuary 21st, at 8:00 p.m. on abc. we leave you with one final note about the passing of one of authors, harper lee. mockingbird" left a lasting legacy. president obama and first lady michelle obama paid their respects today saying, "what that one story did morerfully than 100 speeches possibly could was change the way we saw each other, and then the way we saw ourselves." thank you for watching. tune into gma tomorrow. and as always we're on the "nightline" facebook page and abcnews.com. good night, america. lease a 2016 lincoln mkx for $399 a monthur lincoln dealer. from hollywood, almost live. it's comics unleashed with your host byron allen. tonight, byron welcome s s fred nelson and rebeca sloane.