Pieper Lewis, a teen from Iowa, was sentenced to 5 years of probation in September for stabbing her alleged rapist to death. Her probation will be closely supervised and she was also ordered to pay the family of the man she stabbed to death, Zachary Brooks, $150,000. Lewis was in custody in Des Moines at a women’s center when she escaped.
Pieper Lewis, 18, walked out of the Fresh Start Women’s Center around 6:15 a.m. and cut off a GPS monitor, according to a probation violation report obtained by the Des Moines Register.
Lewis says she stabbed Brooks “in a fit of rage two years ago after he raped her multiple times when she was 15 years old.”
Prosecutors did not dispute that Lewis was a victim of sex trafficking, but argued that Brooks was asleep when he was stabbed and did not pose an immediate threat.
Many people are upset that she has to pay the family of the man who allegedly raped her multiple times. But there is a mandatory law in Iowa.
The $150,000 that Lewis was ordered to pay to Brooks’ family elicited widespread criticism, but the judge in the case said “this court is presented with no other option” since restitution is mandatory under Iowa law.
A GoFundMe campaign created to pay that restitution raised well over half a million dollars.
Lewis could have been sentenced to up to 20 years in prison since she pled guilty to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury. But the sentence was deferred under the terms of her probation. Now that she has escaped they could revoke the judgment.
A probation violation report issued Friday said that her deferred judgments should be revoked and her original sentence should be imposed, according to the Des Moines Register.
Source Fox News