By Aaron Miller-
An appalling law in Iowa, U.S, has led a court to tell a rape victim sentenced to five years of closely supervised probation that she must pay the family of the man she murdered $150,000 If her probation is violated, she will be sentenced to 20 years in prison, because of an appalling law in the state.
Pieper Lewis, 17, (pictured)was originally charged with first-degree murder in June 2020 for the killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks of Des Moines. In 2021, she pleaded guilty to charges of involuntary manslaughter and wilful 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. three years, plus 600 more hours of comm. service to pay off $4,000 plus in fines.
In terms of the requirement for her to pay the estate of her rapist, the judge said: “this court is presented with no other option”, Porter said, noting the restitution is mandatory under a state law that has been upheld by the Iowa supreme court.
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.
Judge Porter told her: “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.
The shocking law on which the ruling was based has horrified many observers due to its illogicality.
She will have 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.
A former teacher of Lewis, Leland Schipper, organized the GoFundMe appeal, which by Wednesday lunchtime had surpassed the required amount.
“I am overjoyed with the prospect of removing this burden from Pieper,” Schipper wrote, adding: “A child who was raped, under no circumstances, should owe the rapist’s family money.”
Schipper said the money would be used first to pay off the $150,000 restitution and an additional $4,000 owed to the state. The surplus would then “remove financial barriers for Pieper in pursuing college/university or starting her own business [and] give Pieper the financial capacity to explore ways to help other young victims of sex crimes”, Schipper said.
Mutiple Stabbings
Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment. Officials have said Lewis was a runaway seeking to escape an abusive life with her adopted mother and was sleeping in the hallways of an apartment building when a 28-year-old man took her in before trafficking her to other men for sex.
Lewis said one of those men was Brooks, who raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death. She recounted being forced at knifepoint by the 28-year-old man to go with Brooks to his apartment for sex. She told officials that after Brooks raped her yet again, she grabbed a knife from a bedside table and stabbed him in a fit of rage.
Police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked. But prosecutors argued that Brooks was asleep when he was stabbed and not an immediate danger to Lewis.
State Law
According to Iowa State Law, anybody 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.
Iowa is not among the dozens of states that have a so-called safe harbor law that gives trafficking victims at least some level of criminal immunity.
Lewis, who earned her GED in juvenile detention, acknowledged in a statement before sentencing that she struggled with the structure of her detention, including “why I was treated like fragile glass”, not allowed to communicate with friends or family.
“My spirit has been burned but still glows through the flames,” she read from a statement. “Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow.”
“I am a survivor,” she said.
Prosecutors took issue with Lewis calling herself a victim and said she failed to take responsibility for stabbing Brooks and “leaving his kids without a father”.
The judge peppered Lewis with requests to explain what poor choices she made that led up to Brooks’s stabbing and expressed concern that she sometimes did not want to follow rules in juvenile lockup.
“The next five years of your life will be full of rules you disagree with, I’m sure of it,” Porter said. He added: “This is the second chance that you’ve asked for. You don’t get a third.”
Karl Schilling, spokesperson for the Iowa organization for victim assistance, said a bill to create a safe harbor law for trafficking victims passed the Iowa house this year but stalled in the senate amid concern from law enforcement groups that it was too broad.
“There was a working group established to iron out the issues,” Shilling said. “Hopefully it will be taken up again next year.”
Iowa does have an affirmative defense law that gives some leeway to victims of crime if they commit a violation “under compulsion by another’s threat of serious injury, provided that the defendant reasonably believed that such injury was imminent”.
Prosecutors argued that Lewis waived that affirmative defense when she pleaded guilty to manslaughter and wilful injury.