Vicksburg Police Chief Tommy Moffett testified Tuesday he doesn’t think an officer on trial for having sex with a student while he was assigned to her school broke any law.

Also, the student testified that she initiated the relationship with suspended officer Anthony Lane, 29, who faces prison time if convicted.

&#8220Honestly, I initiated it,” the student said, adding that repeated sexual encounters with Lane occurred in her mother’s home for more than a month.

All five witnesses in the case were called by prosecutors who rested their case at the end of the day. Lane did not testify. Closing arguments, instructions by Circuit Judge Isadore Patrick and deliberations by jurors, selected Monday, follow.

Their decision will be whether Lane was &#8220in a position of trust or authority” over the Vicksburg High student, then 17, during the relationship. The general age of consent for sex between a minor and an adult in Mississippi is 16, but two years are added in a sexual battery statute if the adult has control or power over the child. The statute lists 14 roles, including teacher, minister and coach. It does not include police officer, but says the listing is not meant to be complete.

Lane and a second officer, Bobby Jones, 32, were indicted after an attorney general’s opinion said a school resource officer fit the statute’s broader definition and any police officer could possibly fit. Jones’ indictment is being handled separately.

Moffett, however, said Lane’s assignment to Vicksburg High and his relationship with the student in June 2004 did not rise to the level of a crime.

&#8220You have to foster respect as well as trust in order to carry out the function that we would carry out as a school-resource officer or as a Vicksburg Police Department officer in general,” Moffett said under questioning from Assistant District Attorney John Bullard.

Moffett added, however, that &#8220as I understand the statute, it does not include police officers.”

Moffett, who ordered an internal department investigation after hearing about the relationships, gave Lane a 20-day suspension for &#8220conduct unbecoming an officer.” No sanction was given to Jones, not assigned to school duty.

Bullard responded to Moffett’s statement by asking the chief whether he thought it was appropriate for Lane to have had sex with the girl.

&#8220Absolutely not,” Moffett said. &#8220But I didn’t discipline (him) for criminal reasons.”

In her testimony, the student said she knew Lane through her work in the principal’s office and that the two began getting to know each other better after one school day during the spring 2004 semester, when she reported to him a physical fight with an ex-boyfriend of hers in a school parking lot.

Lane is being represented by attorneys Ramel Cotton of Vicksburg and Roy K. Smith of Jackson. Smith argued Tuesday that even though Lane was called a school-resource officer he didn’t meet some of the written qualifications for such a position and that, in any event, the sex occurred while school was out for the summer and no school-resource officer was on duty.

VHS principal Charlie Tolliver said Lane was assigned to VHS at the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year and was its first school-resource officer. He said he and Lane acted as regular advisers to each other in keeping order in the school and that Lane developed a good relationship with the students there in general.

&#8220They counted on seeing him being around and they loved talking to him,” Tolliver said.

The school-resource-officer program is part of an overall plan to reduce juvenile crime through a kind of &#8220community policing,” Moffett said.

In addition to the suspension, Lane was reassigned.

Both officers have also been suspended pending resolution of the indictments. Sexual battery carries a 30-year maximum prison term.