An Iowa teenager who was sentenced to five years probation earlier this year after stabbing her alleged rapist to death escaped custody at a women’s center in Des Moines on Friday.
Pieper Lewis, 18, walked out of the Fresh Start Women’s Center around 6:15 a.m. and hacked into a GPS monitor, according to a parole violation report obtained by the Des Moines Register.
She was sentenced in September to five years of closely supervised probation and ordered to pay $150,000 to the family of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks.
Pieper Lewis, 17, testifies in an Iowa court. She was sentenced to supervised probation and ordered to pay $150,000 to the family of a man she stabbed to death after he repeatedly raped her.
(Associated Press)
Lewis said she stabbed Brooks to death in a fit of rage two years ago after he raped her multiple times when she was 15.
Prosecutors did not deny 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.
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The $150,000 Lewis was ordered to pay to the Brooks family drew widespread criticism, but the judge in the case said “this court is presented with no other choice” since restitution is mandatory under Iowa law.
A GoFundMe campaign created to pay for that restitution raised more than half a million dollars.
Pieper Lewis escaped from the parole center on Friday morning shortly after 6:00 a.m.
(Associated Press)
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Lewis faced up to 20 years in prison for pleading guilty to manslaughter and intentional injury. Under the terms of his parole, the sentences were deferred.
A parole violation report issued Friday said their deferred sentences should be reversed and their original sentence imposed, according to the Des Moines Register.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
