GoFundMe for teen forced to pay $150K to accused rapist’s family raises double that
Global News
The GoFundMe campaign for Pieper Lewis, a 17-year-old sex trafficking victim, raised over $350,000 with over 9,000 donations from well-wishers.
NOTE: This article contains descriptions of a sexual nature that are disturbing. Please read at your own discretion.
A GoFundMe campaign created for Pieper Lewis, a teenage sex trafficking victim who was ordered to pay US$150,000 in restitution after killing her accused rapist, has raised over $350,000 as of publication time, with over 9,000 donations from well-wishers.
Lewis, 17, was sentenced to five years probation on Tuesday after pleading guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks of Des Moines, Iowa. Both charges were punishable by up to 10 years in prison but the sentences were deferred. However, if Lewis violates her probation she could be sent to prison to serve that 20-year term.
Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in his apartment in 2020. At the time, she was a repeat runaway who had been taken in by a man who portrayed himself as her boyfriend while trafficking her for sex.
In the weeks leading up to the stabbing, Lewis said that Brooks had raped her multiple times despite her pleas for him to stop. She was forced at knifepoint to go to Brooks’ apartment by the man who was trafficking her.
The last time Brooks raped her, Lewis grabbed a knife off the bedside table and stabbed him repeatedly in a fit of rage.
Police and prosecutors have not disputed that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked. But prosecutors have argued that Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed and not an immediate danger to Lewis.
Lewis was ordered to pay Brooks’ family $150,000 in restitution for killing her accused rapist, in accordance with Iowa law that intends to provide justice to victims’ families.
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