Pieper Lewis, a 17-year-old human trafficking victim from Iowa, was given a five-year probationary period under supervision and compelled to pay $150,000 in compensation to the family of the guy who raped her.
NPR reports that in June 2020, Pieper Lewis fatally stabbed her alleged rapist, 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, and was first charged with first-degree murder. In exchange for probation and a required restitution payment required by Iowa state law, her punishment on that offense has been deferred. Even though the case was horrifying, Polk County Judge David M. Porter said; “this court is presented with no other option,” as is pertains to the whopping $150,000payment.
Officials say that Pieper Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks to death for taking part in a sex trafficking ring she was forced into. At the time, Lewis was reportedly a “runaway who was seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother and was sleeping in the hallways of a Des Moines apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in before forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex.”
Prior to her sentencing, Pieper read a prepared statement to those in the courtroom saying,
My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames. Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow. I am a survivor.”
Despite the facts of the case, prosectors disagreed with Peiper Lewis being a victim, and stated that she did not intend to take a person’s life regardless of how she was treated.
I took a person’s life. My intentions that day were not to just gob out and take somebody’s life. In my mind, I felt that I wasn’t safe and I felt that I was in danger, which resulted in the acts. But it doesn’t take away from the fact that a crime was committed.”
