Tennis coach arrested for sex with teen

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Authorities arrested a Santa Barbara High School tennis coach on Friday for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old student.
Police took 34-year-old Peter Aibor Jeschke, an assistant tennis coach, into custody on a $100,000 warrant for unlawful sex with a minor.

“They had known each other for some time and it started out with them spending some time together,” Santa Barbara Police Det. Jaycee Hunter said. “They got a little closer and it eventually culminated in a sexual relationship.”
Jeschke also allegedly supplied the victim with drugs, he said. The victim’s friends learned of the relationship and approached the assistant principal.
“The school did a really good job,” Det. Hunter said. “They immediately got a hold of us and worked with us. They also, almost immediately upon being disclosed this information, called [Jeschke] in and put him on administrative leave.”
After talking with witnesses and gathering information, police lured Jeschke to a parking lot on Coast Village Road around 4:45 p.m. on Friday and arrested him, Det. Hunter said, adding that the 34-year-old had marijuana on him at the time of the arrest.
Barbara Keyani, a spokeswoman for the school, said the school administration initially became aware of the allegations on Friday, December 7.
“From Friday, when the school began to get wind of it, until Tuesday, the principal and his staff were looking into the allegations to see if they had merit,” she said.
On Tuesday, school administrators discreetly put Jeschke on administrative leave, telling him they had been made aware of several improprieties, Keyani said, turning the investigation over to the police department.
“That’s the way all of our schools would respond,” she said. “…The level of the allegations was very serious, and the school did what they were supposed to do, which was report it in to law enforcement.”
Keyani said Jeschke served as a fingerprinted volunteer for the boys tennis team in spring 2006 before being hired as a walk-on tennis coach for both girls and boys teams, a position that is renewed on a season-by-season basis depending on performance.
“He doesn’t teach in the sense that he is not in the classroom,” Keyani said.
Volunteer and walk-on coaches are fingerprinted and must take a tuberculosis test and know CPR, she said. A background check of Jeschke in 2006 did not turn up any criminal history, she added.
Det. Hunter said Jeschke is also wanted on a $20,000 warrant out of Los Angeles for a DUI offense that occurred after his employment with Santa Barbara High School.
“I doubt they knew about it,” he said.
Jeschke remains in jail on $100,000 bail, Det. Hunter said, and his arraignment will not take place for several days.
Keyani said while not common, incidents involving relationships between school staff and students have occurred, citing the arrest of a Goleta Valley Junior High School temporary teacher in June for allegedly furnishing marijuana to a 14-year-old student.
“It’s just tragic,” she said. “Inappropriate behavior by someone that is trusted and is supposed to be protecting students — it’s tragic when that bond is abused, that expectation that the adult is protecting the student.”