A SPECIAL prosecutor has been appointed to investigate allegations that a 14-year-old cheerleader was sexually assaulted by an older classmate who plied her with alcohol.

Daisy Coleman also alleges that a second 17-year-old boy recorded the January 2012 incident in Maryville, Missouri, using mobile phone video.

Circuit court clerk Elaine Wilson says Jackson County prosecutor Jean Peters Baker has taken on the case.

Felony charges against both boys were dropped last year after Nodaway County prosecutor Robert Rice says Daisy and her family stopped cooperating with the investigation.

Melinda Coleman, Daisy's mother, says the family never stopped co-operating but looks forward to answering questions in a new review of the case.

The case has drawn international attention to the small northwest Missouri town of Maryville after The Kansas City Star published the results of a seven-month investigation. The newspaper's story described a town where many appeared to be closing ranks around the accused and blaming the girl.

The incident happened last March. A 13-year-old friend of Daisy's also said she was forced to have sex with a 15-year-old at the same house, while another 17-year-old allegedly recorded the incident on a mobile phone. The 15-year-old was charged in the juvenile system. Charges against the 17-year-old who allegedly videotaped the incident were also dropped last March.

The daughter acknowledged she and the friend left her house to meet the boys but said they gave her alcohol and she doesn't remember much of what happened next. The boys said the sex was consensual.

In recent days, Mrs Coleman has told news outlets that she and her daughter are prepared to fully cooperate with investigators.

This publication does not generally name victims of sexual assault but is naming Daisy Coleman because she and her mother have been granting public interviews about the case.

The case has drawn comparisons to one in Steubenville, Ohio, where two 17-year-old high school football players were convicted of raping a West Virginia girl after an alcohol-fuelled party in 2012. The case was furiously debated online and led to allegations of a cover-up to protect the city's celebrated football team.

Before Rice's announcement Wednesday, pressure had been building on Attorney General Chris Koster to intervene. A spokeswoman for Koster says the office has no authority under state law to reopen the investigation on its own.



Originally published as New prosecutor for Maryville 'rape'