A adolescent victim of human trafficking who was initially charged with first-degree murder after stabbing her alleged rapist to death was sentenced to five years of closely monitored probation and told to pay $150,000 in compensation to the man’s family in an Iowa court on Tuesday.
Pieper Lewis, 17, was sentenced on Tuesday after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and deliberate injury in the death of Zachary Brooks, 37, of Des Moines in June 2020. Both counts carried a maximum 10-year prison sentence.
Judge David M. Porter of the Polk County District Court deferred the jail terms on Tuesday, meaning that if Lewis breaches any element of her probation, she might be sent to prison to serve the 20-year term.
Regarding the requirement to make restitution to the rapist’s estate, Porter stated, “this court has no choice” because the payment is mandated by Iowa law approved by the Iowa Supreme Court.
Lewis was 15 years old when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a residence in Des Moines. Officials have stated that Lewis was a runaway who was attempting to escape an unhappy life with her adoptive mother. She was sleeping in the halls of an apartment complex in Des Moines when a 28-year-old man took her in and forcibly trafficked her to other men for sexual exploitation.
Lewis stated that one of these guys was Brooks and that he repeatedly raped her in the weeks preceding his death. She described how the 28-year-old man forced her to have sex with Brooks at his apartment at knifepoint. She told authorities that after Brooks raped her again, she grabbed a knife from her bedside table and stabbed him in a fit of wrath.
The fact that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked has not been contested by law enforcement or prosecutors. However, the prosecution contends that Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed and posed no immediate threat to Lewis.
Iowa is not one of the dozens of states with a “safe harbor” provision that grants victims of human trafficking at least some level of criminal immunity.
Lewis, who obtained her GED while in juvenile jail, stated in a statement released before to her sentencing that she struggled with the structure of her detention, questioning “why I was treated like delicate glass” or why she wasn’t permitted to connect with her friends or family.
“My spirit has been scorched, yet it still shines through the flames,” she recited from a prepared statement. “Hear me scream, see me sparkle, and observe my development.”
“I’m a survivor,” she continued.
The Associated Press does not normally identify sexual assault victims, but Lewis gave permission for her name to be used in reporting about her case.
Prosecutors objected to Lewis’s characterization of herself as a victim in the case, arguing that she failed to accept responsibility for stabbing Brooks and “leaving his children fatherless.”
The court probed Lewis with several inquiries to explain what poor decisions she made that led to Brooks’ stabbing and expressed concern that she did not always want to obey the regulations established for juvenile detention.
I am certain that the following five years of your life will be full of regulations with which you disagree, as stated by Porter. Later, he continued, “This is the second opportunity you requested. You are not given a third.”
The Iowa Organization for Victim Assistance’s Karl Schilling stated that a bill to create a safe harbor statute for victims of human trafficking passed the Iowa House earlier this year, but stalled in the Senate due to concerns from law enforcement groups that it was too broad.
“A working group was established to resolve the concerns,” Shilling explained. Hopefully, it will be picked up again the following year.
Iowa does have an affirmative defense rule that offers victims of crime some tolerance if the offense was done “under compulsion by another’s fear of significant injury, provided the offender had a reasonable belief that the injury was impending.”
Tuesday, prosecutors argued that Lewis waived her affirmative defense by pleading guilty to manslaughter and intentional injury.