ALLENTOWN — A U.S. appeals court ruled today a northeastern Pennsylvania prosecutor may not pursue felony charges against a teenage girl who appeared in a racy cell-phone photo.

In the first criminal "sexting" case to reach a federal appeals court, the Philadelphia-based 3rd U.S. District Court of Appeals ruled against Wyoming County District Attorney Jeff Mitchell, whose predecessor had threatened to pursue felony charges against the girl unless she agreed to participate in a diversionary program and write an essay explaining what she did and why it was wrong.

That violated the teen's constitutional right to be free from compelled speech and infringed on her parents' right to direct her upbringing, the court said.

The photo, which wound up on students' cell phones, showed the girl just out of the shower and topless, with a towel wrapped around her waist. It surfaced in October 2008, when officials at Tunkhannock Area High School confiscated five cell phones and found boys had been trading photos of scantily clad, seminude or nude teenage girls. The students with the cell phones ranged in age from 11 to 17.

Then-District Attorney George Skumanick met with about 20 students and their parents and offered them a deal in which the youths wouldn't be prosecuted if they took a class on sexual harassment, sexual violence and gender roles. Seventeen of the students accepted the offer, but three balked and sued Skumanick.