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Google PlayAn Iowa teenager, who was a victim of human trafficking, has been sentenced to five years of supervised probation and ordered to pay $150,000 for killing her alleged rapist, NBC News via the Associated Press reports.
Peiper Lewis was sentenced on Tuesday after she pleaded to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in connection with the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks. The 17-year-old, who was just 15 when she stabbed Brooks to death in his Des Moines apartment, was initially charged with first-degree murder.
According to authorities, she was a runaway who was sleeping in the halls of an apartment building before she was took in by a 28-year-old man who trafficked her.
Lewis was facing up to ten years in prison on both charges, but Polk County District judge David M. Porter deferred the sentences. If she violates the conditions of her closely supervised probation she could be forced to serve 20 years. Porter noted that the court was “presented with no other option” in regards to paying the family of Brooks, as it’s mandatory under Iowa law.
“The next five years of your life will be full of rules you disagree with, I’m sure of it,” Porter said. “This is the second chance that you’ve asked for. You don’t get a third.”
In the weeks leading up to Brooks’ death, Lewis said that he raped her multiple times after she was forced at knifepoint to go to the man’s apartment. Prosecutors and authorities did not dispute that Lewis was a victim of human trafficking and sexual assault, although the former did suggest Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed more than 30 times by her.
“My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames,” said Lewis in a statement prior to her sentencing. “Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow. I am a survivor.”
