For the past several weeks, the case of Peter Jeschke has been taking place quietly in Santa Barbara Superior Court chambers. Jeschke, a former Santa Barbara High School tennis coach, is facing allegations of having sex with one of the players on his team in 2007 and for giving drugs and alcohol to minors.

He faces a dozen charges, including unlawful sexual intercourse, sex with a foreign object, oral copulation of a person under 18, administering an intoxicating substance to a minor and soliciting narcotics.

Throughout the trial, multiple witnesses have come forward to testify, including other girls on the tennis team, girls who received private lessons from Jeschke, school administrators, and friends and parents of the girl who alleges the sexual encounter with Jeschke.

Last week, the girl, now 18, faced hours of questioning from deputy attorney Joyce Dudley, and from Los Angeles-based Lara Yeretsian, Jeschke’s defense attorney. In her unemotional testimony, she recounted having sex with Jeschke twice in November 2007, once in his car and once at a house he was watching for a friend.

The defense asked the girl about several diaries she had kept that fall, and the girl admitted she had destroyed one of the diaries, fearing someone would find it. The defense implied that the witness may have fabricated the second journal, which the girl denied.

Yeretsian also read an entry from the journal that the witness admitted she had written, using the name “Shiah” as a code name for Jeschke. “Shiah is f******, because I could ruin his life,” the entry read. “I could crush it in two seconds. He’s being an a**.”

Yeretsian asked if the witness had been mad enough to make up things, and the girl said no. The girl also testified that the defendant had given her half of an ecstasy tablet, which made her feel “loose.” They eventually had sex, and the girl said she had done two lines of cocaine before she left the house later that evening after her parents called so she could drive home.

At one point, the defense questioned the girl about several times she previously had consumed alcohol with friends before drinking with Jeschke.

Yeretsian asked if the witness had been afraid if she would be arrested. “No, because he was the one giving it to me,” the witness said. Yeretsian suggested to the judge that the witness should be entitled to an attorney, but Judge Ochoa told her to move on.

Another witness, who had received lessons from Jeschke in seventh and eighth grades, recounted driving to a tournament with him and another tennis player when he asked her how far they had gone sexually. When asked by Dudley how that made her feel, the witness said it hadn’t bothered her. “I thought of him as someone I could talk to, so it didn’t make me feel extremely uncomfortable at the time,” she said.

Another witness who had played tennis on Jeschke’s team and received private lessons said that Jeschke had picked up a teammate from a house where she had been partying and told the girl not to tell anyone. She also said that he told the girls he liked them to wear spandex.

“I feel like he disrespected the team,” she said. “I think he’s disgusting.”

One of the most emotional parts of the trial occurred when recordings were played of several phone conversations between Jeschke and the girl who alleges he had sex with her before his arrest on Dec. 14. In the calls, Jeschke threatened suicide to the girl multiple times. “Why didn’t you wait until I was 18?” she asked. Jeschke responded, “That was a mistake.”

The girl said she cared about Jeschke, and that she wanted to meet in person to talk.

“I have overwhelming feelings for you,” he told her. “You’re 16 years old. What’s wrong with me? I’m a 34-year-old man who loves someone he can’t and shouldn’t be with.”

Testimony and closing arguments from the attorneys are estimated to wrap up by early next week, leaving the jury to deliberate the case’s outcome.

— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at lcooper@noozhawk.com.