MULE
By BILL DRAPER
(KANSAS CITY, Mo., AP) — More than two months after being appointed special prosecutor to re-examine a northwest Missouri teenager’s claims that she was raped by an older schoolmate who wasn’t held accountable, Jackson County prosecuting attorney Jean Peters Baker is expected to announce Thursday whether she’ll file charges against a Missouri man accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in Maryville two years ago when he was 17.
Baker, who has been tight-lipped about the case since announcing in late October that she had been appointed as special prosecutor, was scheduled to attend a hearing at the Nodaway County Courthouse in Maryville on Thursday. Her office said Wednesday she would speak with the media afterward.
Baker was picked to look at the case after Daisy Coleman and her mother went public and said that Nodaway County Prosecutor Robert Rice hadn’t done enough before dropping felony charges against two 17-year-old boys, including the boy Daisy says raped her.
Daisy says that in January 2012, when she was a 14-year-old freshman at Maryville High School, she and a friend were taken to a party where a 17-year-old schoolmate gave her alcohol and raped her. Daisy’s mother, Melinda Coleman, says she found her daughter passed out on the front porch of her home hours after she and her friend were dumped in the front yard in freezing temperatures.
Rice has said he dropped the felony charges after the Coleman family stopped cooperating. Melinda Coleman disputes that.
Daisy’s story generated new attention and an outpouring of responses on social media in October, after The Kansas City Star published the results of its investigation into the allegations. The family also spoke out earlier last year to Kansas City radio station KCUR.
The Associated Press does not generally name victims of sexual assault but is naming the Colemans because they have been granting public interviews about the case. The AP is not naming the boys because there are no active charges against them.
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