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On Tuesday, September 13, 2022, sex trafficking victim Pieper Lewis was sentenced to five years of closely supervised probation by a judge in Iowa. If her probation is violated, she will be sentenced to 20 years in prison. She was further ordered to pay $150,000 as restitution to the family of the man who had raped her, and who she had stabbed to death. She stabbed him more than 30 times.
Pieper Lewis, 17, was originally charged with first-degree murder for the death of her assaulter, 37-year-old Zachary Brooks. In 2021, she pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and willful injury, each carrying a sentence of 10 years of imprisonment. Her sentence was deferred by Polk County District Judge David M. Porter at Tuesday's hearing.
Calling the decision a "second chance" at life for the black teen, Porter said that the successful completion of probation and the deferment of prison sentences could guarantee a clean criminal record for Pieper Lewis. According to USA Today, Porter said:
"Well, Ms. Lewis, this was the second chance you asked for. You don’t get a third. Do you understand that?"
Apart from five years of probation and compensation money, Pieper Lewis was also ordered to serve 1,200 hours of community service, which will cover more than $4,000 in fines. Her home for the next five years of probation will be the Fresh Start Women's Center, and she will be subject to GPS tracking.
According to Iowa State Law, Lewis, convicted of homicide, is required to pay $150,000 to Brooks' estate as compensation. A GoFundMe page has been set up for her to raise funds by her former teacher, Leland Schipper. The aim of the fundraiser is to pay off Pieper Lewis' restitution, pay off the additional 4k in restitution to the state, financially support her dream of pursuing college/university or starting her own business, and provide Pieper with the financial freedom to explore ways to help other young victims of sex crimes.
"Pieper will avoid prison, and she will have access to some of the services she needs to continue healing. However, in Iowa, there is a law that states that anyone who is convicted of killing a person, regardless of circumstances, must pay that individual’s family 150,000 dollars...However, in the case of Pieper, it will require her to pay 150,000 dollars to the family of a man who purchased Pieper’s fifteen-year-old body from a sex trafficker, gave her drugs and alcohol, and then raped her repeatedly. Pieper does not owe that man’s family justice. Pieper does not deserve to be finically burdened for the rest of her life because the state of Iowa wrote a law that fails to give judges any discretion as to how it is applied."
As of September 14, the fundraiser has raised over $176,000 from more than 4,300 donations.
Pieper Lewis recalled her trauma in front of a judge on Tuesday
In 2020, the then 15-year-old Iowa teen, homeless and vulnerable in a dangerous area of Des Moines, found herself in a sex trafficking trap. Trafficked to Zachary Brooks by a 28-year-old man who has remained unnamed in exchange for drugs, Pieper Lewis was allegedly drugged and intoxicated by Brooks before he took advantage of her and raped her over five times over the weekend.
According to her attorneys, when Lewis attempted to escape from her assaulter, she was forced back to him at knifepoint by her trafficker. On June 1, 2020, Pieper decided to put an end to her torment and stabbed the man, who had sexually exploited her multiple times, to death.
In her plea, she wrote:
"I did not want to have sex with Mr. Brooks. I did not want to go to Mr. Brooks' apartment, but I had no other place to go...I thought that this was the only way to stop him from having sex with me."
In her plea, she also wrote about how she genuinely believed that her trafficker was her romantic partner. Gretchen Brown-Waech, victim rights and human trafficking coordinator in the Iowa Attorney General's Office, said:
"Force is what people think of. That's not very common. Fraud is slightly more common and easier to prove. Coercion is the one that's most common, least understood and least proven."
Pieper, still full of hope and ambition, wishes to turn around her traumatic experience and instead use it as a stepping stone. She wants to provide other victims with a voice. On Tuesday, while deferring Pieper Lewis' prison sentence, Judge Porter said:
"You have a story to tell. If you're willing to tell that story in front of me and the members here in this courtroom, you should be willing and be able to tell that story to other young and vulnerable women in our community."
Following her probation, Pieper Lewis wants to pursue higher education, create art, and most importantly, she wants to advocate for other girls who find themselves in situations like the one she endured.
