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A 17-year-old Iowa sex trafficking victim who stabbed her rapist to death was sentenced on Tuesday to five years of closely supervised probation, and was ordered to pay $150,000 as restitution to her abuser's family.
Pieper Lewis stabbed her abuser, 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, over 30 times in June 2020, an action that got her a first-degree murder charge according to a Fox News report. Last year, Lewis pleaded guilty to willful injury and involuntary manslaughter, which are both punishable by up to a decade in prison. However, Polk County District Judge David Porter deferred those sentences for probation instead.
Porter said he ordered Lewis to pay the large sum of restitution money to Brooks' family due to the court being "presented with no other option." According to Porter, restitution is mandatory under Iowa state law.
Lewis was only 15 when she stabbed Brooks in a Des Moines apartment. She had run away from home to escape her abusive adoptive mother, and wound up sleeping in the halls of an apartment building when Christopher Brown, 28, took her in and began trafficking her to other men for sex, according to officials.
Among the men that Lewis was trafficked to was Brooks, who Lewis claimed raped her multiple times before she killed him. According to Lewis, she was forced at knifepoint to go to Brooks apartment, who raped her one last time before she had the chance to grab a knife off of a bedside table and stab him.
Neither police nor prosecutors disputed whether Lewis was the victim of sex trafficking or assault, but prosecutors claimed that Brooks was not an immediate threat because he was asleep when he was stabbed, thus making the girl a criminal.
Iowa is not among the dozens of states with "safe harbor laws" that gives trafficking victims some level of criminal immunity, which may have helped Lewis beat her case.
The teenager will be taken to a Des Moines halfway house and will be forced to wear a location-tracking device to ensure she does not fall "back into the lifestyle that you thus far left," Porter said. In addition, she will also have to complete 200 hours of community service for her crime of killing the man who raped her.
"My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames," Lewis said in a statement prior to her sentencing. "Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow."
"I am a survivor," she continued.
Prosecutors took issue with Lewis labeling herself as a survivor, claiming she failed to take responsibility for Brooks' death and leaving his children without a father, Fox News reported.
When the judge pressed her to explain her decision-making that led to the stabbing, Lewis defended her state of mind at the time of the incident.
"The next five years of your life will be full of rules you disagree with, I'm sure of it," Porter said to the girl, later adding, "This is the second chance that you've asked for. You don't get a third."
"I took a person's life. My intentions that day were not to just go out and take somebody’s life," Lewis argued. "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."
She said she regretted the stabbing, "but to say there is one victim is absurd."
Pieper Lewis stabbed her abuser, 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, over 30 times in June 2020, an action that got her a first-degree murder charge according to a Fox News report. Last year, Lewis pleaded guilty to willful injury and involuntary manslaughter, which are both punishable by up to a decade in prison. However, Polk County District Judge David Porter deferred those sentences for probation instead.
Porter said he ordered Lewis to pay the large sum of restitution money to Brooks' family due to the court being "presented with no other option." According to Porter, restitution is mandatory under Iowa state law.
Lewis was only 15 when she stabbed Brooks in a Des Moines apartment. She had run away from home to escape her abusive adoptive mother, and wound up sleeping in the halls of an apartment building when Christopher Brown, 28, took her in and began trafficking her to other men for sex, according to officials.
Among the men that Lewis was trafficked to was Brooks, who Lewis claimed raped her multiple times before she killed him. According to Lewis, she was forced at knifepoint to go to Brooks apartment, who raped her one last time before she had the chance to grab a knife off of a bedside table and stab him.
Neither police nor prosecutors disputed whether Lewis was the victim of sex trafficking or assault, but prosecutors claimed that Brooks was not an immediate threat because he was asleep when he was stabbed, thus making the girl a criminal.
Iowa is not among the dozens of states with "safe harbor laws" that gives trafficking victims some level of criminal immunity, which may have helped Lewis beat her case.
The teenager will be taken to a Des Moines halfway house and will be forced to wear a location-tracking device to ensure she does not fall "back into the lifestyle that you thus far left," Porter said. In addition, she will also have to complete 200 hours of community service for her crime of killing the man who raped her.
"My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames," Lewis said in a statement prior to her sentencing. "Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow."
"I am a survivor," she continued.
Prosecutors took issue with Lewis labeling herself as a survivor, claiming she failed to take responsibility for Brooks' death and leaving his children without a father, Fox News reported.
When the judge pressed her to explain her decision-making that led to the stabbing, Lewis defended her state of mind at the time of the incident.
"The next five years of your life will be full of rules you disagree with, I'm sure of it," Porter said to the girl, later adding, "This is the second chance that you've asked for. You don't get a third."
"I took a person's life. My intentions that day were not to just go out and take somebody’s life," Lewis argued. "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."
She said she regretted the stabbing, "but to say there is one victim is absurd."
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