A GoFundMe marketing campaign began for Pieper Lewis — the Iowa teen sentenced Tuesday to pay $150,000 in restitution after killing her accused rapist — has raised over $235,000 as of Wednesday, with donations pouring in from almost 6,000 folks. Lewis, who pleaded responsible final yr to involuntary manslaughter and willful damage, was additionally sentenced to 5 years of probation.
Officers mentioned Lewis was 15-year-old runaway and a sufferer of human trafficking when she stabbed Brooks to dying in his house in June 2020 after being pressured into intercourse.
The GoFundMe was began by Lewis' former math instructor, Leland Schipper, who said on the web page that the funds will likely be used to repay her restitution to Brooks' household and the state, "Take away monetary obstacles for Pieper in pursuing school/college or beginning her personal enterprise," and to "Give Pieper the monetary capability to discover methods to assist different younger victims of intercourse crimes."
Lewis, now 17, was sentenced by Polk County District Choose David M. Porter Tuesday within the killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks of Des Moines. She might have confronted as much as 10 years in jail for every of two costs. Whereas Lewis managed to keep away from doing time, the decide warned that any violation of her probation might end in having to serve a 20-year jail sentence.
The decide mentioned the restitution Lewis was ordered to pay to Brooks' property is obligatory underneath Iowa legislation, and that "this court docket is introduced with no different choice," the Related Press reported.
Prosecutors had argued that Brooks was asleep on the time, and posed no quick hazard to Lewis.
"My spirit has been burned, however nonetheless glows by means of the flames," Lewis learn from a ready assertion on Tuesday. "Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me develop. I'm a survivor."
Lewis earned her GED whereas in detention awaiting sentencing.
"Pieper needs to go to school, she needs to create artwork, and he or she needs to advocate for different ladies who discover themselves in conditions like she endured," wrote Schipper within the GoFundMe description. "She doesn't deserve a large debt looming over her, holding her again from pursuing her ambitions."
Many states within the U.S. have "secure harbor" legal guidelines, which grant minors who're victims of intercourse trafficking a sure degree of felony immunity, however Iowa doesn't have such provisions in place. In keeping with the Nationwide Institute of Justice, a College of Kentucky research on secure harbor legal guidelines within the state "confirmed that justice-involved kids had been extra more likely to be screened for intercourse trafficking and to be supplied sufferer companies, and had been much less more likely to be criminally charged."
Karl Schilling, an activist with the Iowa Group for Sufferer Help, mentioned that whereas a invoice to create a secure harbor in Iowa handed that state's Home earlier this yr, it stalled within the Senate as a consequence of issues from legislation enforcement teams that the laws was too broad.
For those who or a beloved one is the sufferer of human trafficking, please name the toll-free Nationwide Human Trafficking Hotline at 1 (888) 373-7888.
The Related Press contributed reporting.