‘I AM A SURVIVOR’

Trafficked Iowa Teen Who Fatally Stabbed Abuser Ordered to Pay $150K

“I wish that never happened,” Pieper Lewis, who was 15 when she killed Zachary Brooks after he raped her. “But to say there’s only one victim in the story is absurd.”

A young human trafficking victim, who was 15 years old when she killed a man she said repeatedly raped her, was sentenced by a Des Moines judge on Tuesday to pay $150,000 in restitution to his family. Pieper Lewis, now 17, was granted a deferred judgment and ordered to serve five years’ probation without early release and 600 hours of community service. “Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me grow,” Lewis told the court on Tuesday, reading from a prepared statement. “I am a survivor.” After she stabbed 37-year-old Zachary Brooks around 30 times in 2020, Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury last June. Matt Sheeley, Lewis’ attorney, said they were “very pleased” with the court’s decision, having been concerned about an original charge of first degree murder, which could have landed Lewis a 20-year prison sentence. “She has got her entire life ahead of her… So the restitution is not really something she is bothered by at this point,” he told WHO 13 News.