An Iowa teen who killed a man after he allegedly sexually assaulted her on multiple occasions was ordered to pay the man’s family $150,000 in restitution on Tuesday.
According to CNN, Pieper Lewis,17, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury in June 2021, a year after she killed Zachary Brooks, 37, in Des Moines. She was initially charged with first-degree murder.
Lewis was 15 years old at the time and homeless because she fled the abusive home of her adopted mother.
Lewis said in her plea agreement that she moved in with a man in April 2020 who created an online dating profile for her and arranged for men to have sex with her for money.
She met Brooks in May 2020 and he raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death.
On May 31st she agreed to go back to Brooks’ apartment after the man she was living with at the time threatened her with a knife when she refused to have sex with Brooks in exchange for marijuana. She said that after Brooks had raped her yet again, she grabbed a knife from a bedside table and stabbed him multiple times in a fit of rage.
“I suddenly realized that Mr. Brooks had raped me yet again and was overcome with rage. Without thinking, I immediately grabbed the knife from his nightstand and began stabbing him,” Lewis stated in the plea agreement. “I further acknowledge that the multiple stab wounds that I inflicted upon Mr. Brooks thereafter ultimately resulted in his death.”
On Tuesday, Polk County District Judge David Porter sentenced Lewis to five years probation and ordered her to perform 1,200 hours of community service. He also ordered her to pay $150,000 to Brooks’ family, saying he was bound by Iowa law to require her to pay restitution.
A GoFundMe page set up to pay the restitution has raised over $380,0000.
“My story can change things. My story has changed me. The events that took place on that horrific day cannot be changed, as much as I wish I could. That day a combination of complicated actions took place resulting in the death of a person, as well as a stolen innocence of a child,” Lewis said during her sentencing hearing on Tuesday.
She continued: “As I grow and evolve as a young woman, I feel for the victim’s family. I wish what happened never did. And I truly feel that way. The healing process is inevitable. I repeat, I wish the events that occurred on June 1, 2020 never occurred. But to say there is only one victim of this story is absurd.”