Iowa sex trafficking victim Pieper Lewis was found and arrested after she fled the women’s center where she was being held on probation for killing her rapist.
Lewis, now 18, was sentenced at age 17 to five years of supervised probation on Sept. 14, over two years after she pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the death of Zachary Brooks. She was also ordered to pay $150,000 to Brooks’s family in restitution.
She’s been on the run since Friday after she cut off her GPS monitor and left the Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines, Iowa, at around 6:19 a.m.
IOWA HUMAN TRAFFICKING VICTIM ORDERED TO PAY $150,000 AFTER KILLING ACCUSED RAPIST
Lewis was located by Iowa corrections officers in Des Moines and booked into the Polk County Jail on Tuesday, according to Polk County Sheriff Lt. Ryan Evans per the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
“We would like to thank law enforcement and members of Iowa’s 5th Judicial District for their efforts to safely bring Ms. Lewis back into custody,” corrections spokesman Nick Crawford said.
At 15, Lewis stabbed and killed Brooks, 37, on June 1, 2020. Lewis testified in court that Brooks had taken her in after she escaped her abusive adopted mother, but he soon forced her into sex trafficking and sold her to other men. He raped her several times before she killed him while he slept, per police reports.
Prosecutors had argued that Brooks was not an immediate danger to Lewis because he was not awake at the time of the stabbing. They wanted Lewis to pay restitution for leaving his children fatherless, which was granted at $150,000. A GoFundMe was set up by a former teacher, with donations exceeding the restitution costs from donors who were outraged at her sentencing.
Polk County Judge David Porter gave Lewis a deferred judgment in September that ordered her to spend five years of probation at the women’s center, stating that this was her second chance, with no possibility of a third.
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Lewis will go before Porter for a probation revocation hearing. A date has not yet been set as of Wednesday. If her probation is revoked, she could be sentenced to prison, which could be up to 20 years.
