On a 2016 nissan rogue. Seconds. Good evening. Thank you for joining us. Vendetta, revenge. Both make for a good book or movie. Both can have dangerous and reallife consequences. Thats what happened to a pta president in california who found herself targeted and framed by a couple of very angry parents sparked by a single word. She tells abcs Chris Connelly how her life has not been the same ever since. I won my lawsuit. Its finally all over. Reporter victoria peters can finally smile. After nearly six years of personal and legal torment. A jury awarding her 5. 7 million vindictive couple once out to destroy this pta moms good name. It was awful. I mean, it just it crushed me. And deep inside i was just i was just dying. You know, dying. What does that money represent to you . Years of hard labor, stress, you know. Changes. Terrible changes. Reporter for kelli peters that stress, those terrible changes, and this relentlessly bizarre saga, began in 2010 at plaza advice sa stool. Kelli was a parent volunteer supervising afterschool pickup. As this woman, attorney jill easter arrived, to get easters young son, whennhe first grader wasnt there on time jill easter teed off on kelli. I said, i am so sorry, he didnt line up fast enough, maybe he just walked slow. Reporter for jill easter, and later her husband kent, word slow would activate a find of bad parenting nuclear bomb that would exact a spectacular toll. I believe mrs. Peters said youre being slow, like falling behind in line, and i think the easters took it as their son was being mentally slow. Reporter jill easters words to kelli grew increasingly heated. I said, im done. This is crazy. And that made her very angry. She lost her mind over it. I turned my back and she yelled, i will get you reporter the easters waged a campaign against kelli, making wild accusations, handing out flyers, demanding she be fired from her unpaid position. They attempted to have me removed fm the school, removed from any irvine school, banished. Completely banished. Reporter the schools investigation backed kelli 100 . That was when things started to on a school day in 2011, as kent easter made a 1 15 p. M. Call to Irvine Police using an alias and a phoney accent. Just had to go over to the school, i saw a car driving very erratically. Im concerned one of the parent volunteers there may be under the influence or using drugs. Whats your last name . Command dravikar. Reporter trying to set uncle uncleli for a bogus bust. The cops discovering these illicit items in her car. A bag of marijuana protruding. They put it on the police car for everybody to see. Which was really hard. Because i kept thinking, my daughters getting out any minute. And im just thinking the whole world is looking at this right now. And i said, please, theyre not mine, i swear to you theyre not mine. Reporter she was right. They werent hers. Tests showed the easters dna on the marijuana pipe found in the phone call . Police traced it to this Newport Beach hotel. Not where youd spot erratic driving in irvine. And that man captured on the hotel surveillance video. Kent easter. When the police were able to determine that the defendants law firm was next door, the pieces started to come together for them. Reporter kelli was cleared. Police gathering evidence indicating the easters had planted the drugs and paraphernalia in kellis car the night before. The case of an irvine lawyer charged with planting reporter the easters were each charged with false imprisonment for trying to set kelli up. Jill copped a plea and was sentenced to 120 days. Kent easter wanted to go to trial, forcing kelli to relive her trauma and anguish on the stand. Defense attorney painted him as jills hapless stooge. A husband trying to appease a difficult wife. Reporter new evidence, this honeydo list from hell. She has legal assignment for kent and wants them done in 24 hours. Exhaust the criminal code against kelli. File suits against the school district, the school, and whomever else we possibly can, tomorrow. Then a bizarre twist. Jill easter appearing as a surprise witness for kent. Appearing, but never actually testifying. Claiming shed gone deaf. Kent was found guilty and sentenced to 180 days. But the toll of the whole ordeal left kelli eager for another 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 it was the principle. I mean i needed to get out there, get my story told, stick up for myself. Reporter she sued the easters, saying she was forced to endure extreme distress, fear, and public humiliation. Defiant as this exclusive deposition video shows. Sir, did you knowingly participate in a scheme with your wife to frame kelli peters . No. You maintain that you are innocent . Of framing kelli peters for drug possession . Yes. Okay. It seems to me dont you think youd feel better if you just said, you know what, i did it, i screwed up, i regret it, im sorry . Wouldnt that feel good just to say that . This is a therapy session or a deposition . Reporter what would shrink at trial though would be kent easters resolve. As he admitted at last to planting those illicit drugs. How did you respond to the fact that he was willing to say that he had done what hed always denied doing . Not only that, he also said, kelli didnt do anything to my son, it was all made up. That was more important than anything, i think, id heard out of his mouth, ever. He tried to fall on his sword and say, well, i admit it, i did it. And i think the jury saw through that. Reporter the jury sided with kelli, taking just a few hours to reward her 5. 7 million in damages. And she was vicinityndicated. That number is vindication for her. Reporter with the easters divorcing and kent easter file fog bankruptcy, any collection of that judgment might go a little, oh, whats is word slow. But kelli peters is exultant nonetheless. Why was it worth going through the civil trial, even though youre not sure if youll see any money from the easters . I think it was really important to face these people. It was kind of like having a little one on one with them. I feel like they thought they were smarter than everybody, and we needed to go in there and prove who the smart ones were. They just cant get away with stuff like that. Youve got healing still to do . Yeah, but i have to heal fast. I nd to get out and work. Fresh start . Fresh start, yeah. Reporter for nightline, im Chris Connelly in irvine, california. Next, the Vigilante Groups taking up arms against drug cartels in mexico. A tumultuous tale told in the oscarnominated documentary cartel land. Thats right. Just announced. Ford explorer. Edge. Escape. And expedition. 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Drug cartels battle authorities tonight an upclose look at the enormous costs of this war as Vigilante Groups take on the cartels. A story told on the oscarnominated documentary cartel land. Heres abcs matt gutman. Reporter brewing in that barrel is the stuff of war. Its meth. Cooked by masked and heavily armed men deep inside the mexican jungle. The cooking process and the shootouts that ensue in a war to control the drug trade, just some of the rarely seen images blasted at you in the oscarnominated documentary cartel land. Its a chilling look into mexicos drug war. A war so brutal, just this week the pope made an emotional plea temptation of the cartels and pray for the victims of this deadly battle. This is war thats happening in the country just south of us. War in which 100,000 people have been killed since 2007. This is a car that were responsible for. Reporter filmmaker Matthew Heineman spent nine months in a mexican state to bring the war home to us. According to the dea mexican cartels supply as much as 80 of all meth sold in the u. S. Thats why theres been this fight for power in this area. Reporter and a large portion of it cooked up by the Knights Templar cartel. Their byproducts are extortion, kidnappings, torture, and murder. The cartel wielded almost complete control for over a decade. So much grief and injustice,o citizens decided to fight back. In 2013, organizing themselves into a Vigilante Group called the alter defenses, or selfdefenders. Led by a larger than life smalltown doctor, jose manuel morales. Heineman was there to capture the heady early days of this movement. Their goal, to take down Cartel Members one by one. As the Movement Grows larger and more powerful, heineman discovers this is not just a story about good against evil i came away thinking there is no difference between the Knights Templar and the defenses. They use the same means, murder, extortion there are definitely members of the group that operate that way. But not everyone was like that. Everybodys trying to protect what unfortunately took place was power corrupted. Reporter that evil whipping up increasing violence from which not even the documentarian was immune. Were you ever a target of the cartel . Theres countless times when i was surrounded by people, threatened. Theres many, many close calls and scary moments. Reporter the government issued an ultimatum to the vivilantes. Pledge allegiance to the government and enjoy immunity, or go to jail. Fearing prosecution, most surrendered and were rearmed. But morales holds out because he believes the government itself has been corrupted by the cartels. The very institutions that are there to protect them either werent there, or they were working in collaboration, direct collusion, with the cartels. Reporter u. S. Authorities say its widespread corruption that makes this the drug war so difficult to fight. Was called into question when narco king man el chapo causeguzman busted out of this prison in mexico city through an underground tunnel built into his cell, what many experts believed was pulled off with help from the inside. Months later authorities reportedly tracking him to this secret hideout. Seen here this video released by the melks can government. But el chapo outsmarted the Mexican Marines by slipping away through this mirrored wall, designed for this exact moment. Its incredible that right out of that closet and that mirror is this perfectly constructed secret passageway. Were going to go down the stairs here. It led to a tunnel and then the citys drainage system. Hundreds of yards el chapo and his lieutenant crawled through here, you cant even crouch, three feet high, extremely you can tell why they came out of here looking so feltsdy. He was finally caught and sent back to jail but not without exposing the 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. This is terrifying. But it only has to be comfortable enough to do one thing smuggle drugs fast. So far, authorities have uncovered more than 180 tunnels along the 2,000milelong border with mexico. The cartels smuggle not just underground but over it too. Brazenly muling across the open border. The cartel scouts keep getting away. In cartel land we meet another armed Vigilante Group fighting on this side 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 primary goal to keep Cartel Activity out of the country. Reporter which is why initially foley appreciated the order of defense 1,000 miles to the south. Theyre taking back what is theirs from the cartel and its nice to see theyre standing up and going back at them. Reporter but cartel land reminds us that power corrupts. The film showing that over time, morales made too many enemies. He was ultimately arrested on gun charges and taken to jail where he has languished for over a year and a half without trial. When he heard cartel land was nominated for an oscar, morales sent heineman this audio recording from jail. Translator im 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 endured together. Reporter as those battles continue, the chefs keep cooking northward. At the heart of this is americas voracious appetite for drugs. You know, its basics of supply and demand. As long as theres a demand for drugs up here, there will be a supply of drugs coming from mexico and south america. Until that stops all this violence that comes with it wont stop. Reporter for nightline im matt gutman in los angeles. You can see if cartel land will win the golden statue at the oscars february 28th right here on abc. Stars share their favorite memories at disneylands 60th birthday bash. The bold nissan rogue, with intuitive allwheel drive. Now get a 189 per month lease on the 2016 nissan rogue. Nissan. Finally tonight, 60 years ago disneyland was born. Theres no place happier to stay for celebration, stars, singing, dancing, even sharing memories about the magic. Turning 60. The most famous entertainment attraction in the world reporter walt disneys very first theme park disneyland opened in anaheim, california in 1955. Now iconic characters and stars are celebrating our Parent Company disneys diamond anniversary. Danng with the stars derek hough is master of ceremonies. We had this entire parade, hundreds and hundreds of dancers. Its going to be big. Reporter even the years hottest droid bb8 will be in attendance. Along with musical numbers. Be like you from the jungle book. Walk like you talk like you reporter the song guaranteed let it go. Let it go let it go reporter be sure not to miss the Wonderful World of disney, disneyland 60, this sunday, february 21st, at 8 00 p. M. On abc. We leave you with one final note about the passing of one of americas greatest authors, harper lee. Her novel to kill a mockingbird left a lasting legacy. President obama and First Lady Michelle Obama paid their respects today saying, what that one story did more powerfully 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 were online 24 7 on the Nightline Facebook page have a good weekend. Announcer today on an allnew dr. Phil. She suspects her husband. I wore this neck brace to keep him from poking me. She would sleep with a helmet. Announcer or is she delusional . Dr. Phil she put in two nanny cams. He deleted that particular date. Announcer how far will she go . Dr. Phil your lab reports will show no poison. Announcer to prove shes right
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