We Are Iowa Local 5 News
A teenager who was a sex-trafficking victim stabbed her rapist to death. Consequently, the young victim was ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to the man’s family and sentenced to five years of probation by a judge in Iowa.
Pieper Lewis was a 15-year-old runaway and was sleeping in the hallways of an apartment building when 28-year-old Christopher Brown took her in and started pimping her out to other men. One of the men was Zachary Brooks, who raped her multiple times.
Lewis recalled being forced by Brooks at knifepoint to go to his apartment to have sex with him. After Brooks raped her again in June 2020, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him more than 30 times.
Lewis is now 17 and has spent the last two years locked up in a juvenile detention center. She was originally charged with first-degree murder for the stabbing, and pled guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury.
On Sept. 13, the Polk County District Judge deferred Lewis’ prison sentence, meaning if she violates her probation, she could be sent to prison to serve 20 years.
Before her sentencing, Lewis read a statement saying, “My spirit has been burned, but still glows through the flames. Hear me roar, see me glow, watch me grow. I am a survivor.”
