Testimony began this morning in the trial of a police officer accused of sex with a high school student while he was assigned as school resource officer.

Anthony Levell Lane, 29, is one of two Vicksburg Police Department officers indicted under a Mississippi sexual battery statute that makes it a felony for any person in a &#8220position of trust or authority” to engage in a sexual relationship with a person under 18.

Jury selection for Lane’s trial was completed Monday. The charge against the second officer, Bobby Jones, 32, is being handled separately. The same 17-year-old Vicksburg High School girl is named in both cases.

According to the indictment, Lane and the girl had consensual sex around June 2004. The case largely hinges on whether jurors agree with prosecutors that he fit the legal definition of an authority figure.

The statute specifies 14 job titles that fit the definition. It does not include police officer or school-resource officer but it also says it is not meant to be a complete list.

After Police Chief Tommy Moffett learned of Lane’s relationship with the girl and reported it to District Attorney Gil Martin, Lane was initially handed a suspension for &#8220conduct unbecoming an officer,” because, Moffett said, no specific personnel policy prohibited the relationship. Mayor Laurence Leyens, however, said he thought Lane should be fired.

Eventually, Martin wrote Attorney General Jim Hood a letter requesting an interpretation of the statute.

&#8220While the facts of any particular case may vary, the attorney general is of the opinion that a school-resource officer is the type of position envisioned by the statute, i.e. he occupies a position of trust of authority over students in a school to which he is assigned,” Hood responded in a letter. Based on that, grand jurors indicted Lane and Jones.

Lane was removed as school resource officer by Moffett. Jones, 32, who was not assigned to a school, is accused of having sex with the girl around November 2004.

Hood’s opinion letter indicated any police officer could be considered to be a person of trust or authority for purposes of the law.

A trial date in the case against Jones remains pending.

One VPD officer is assigned as a school-resource to each of the three public schools at or above the junior-high level that are inside the city limits. Lane began working at VHS in August 2003.

For general purposes, the age at which a person can give lawful consent to a sexual relationship in Mississippi is 16.