An Iowa court sentenced on Tuesday a teenage sex trafficking victim who stabbed her rapist to death to five years of closely supervised probation and ordered her to pay $150,000 restitution to the family of her rapist.
Pieper Lewis (17), who stabbed her abuser Zachary Brooks of Des Moines more than 30 times in June 2020, was initially charged with first-degree murder and pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury, both punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Polk County District Judge David M Porter deferred those prison sentences on Tuesday, which means that Lewis could be sent to prison to serve 20 years if she violates any portion of her probation.
He also ordered Lewis to pay restitution – which is mandatory under Iowa law that has been upheld by the Iowa supreme court – to her rapist’s family explaining that the court was presented with no other option.
On top of that, Lewis will wear a GPS-tracking device to stop her from falling back into her old lifestyle and will have to complete 200 hours of community service.
Lewis, which was 15 when she killed Brooks, run away from home to escape an abusive adopted mother and sought refuge by sleeping in an apartment building’s hallways in Des Moines.
According to officials, she was taken in by Christopher Brown who began trafficking her to other men – including Brooks – for sex. Lewis testified that Brooks raped her multiple times before she killed him.
On the day of the killing, she was forced to go to his apartment for sex at knifepoint and after Brooks raped her, she grabbed his knife off a bedside table and stabbed him 30 times, killing him.
Although neither police nor prosecutors dispute that Lewis was trafficked and assaulted, they argue that Lewis was not in immediate danger at the time of the stabbing since Brooks was asleep.
Iowa, unlike dozen other US states, does not have a safe harbor law that gives some level of criminal immunity to trafficking victims.
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