Cheema
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A 17-year-old human trafficking victim who stabbed her accused rapist to death was sentenced in an Iowa court to five years of supervised probation and ordered to pay a $150,000 reimbursement to the deceased's family.
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Last year, she pleaded to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of Des Moines.
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District Judge David M. Porter deferred those prison sentences, meaning that if Pieper Lewis violates any part of her probation, she will be sent to prison for a 20-year term.
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Porter also said that the Iowa Supreme Court has upheld that restitution is obligatory under Iowa law. Lewis was just 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times. Officials had said Lewis was a runaway looking to escape an abusive life with her mother.
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She was residing in the hallways of a Des Moines apartment when a 28-year-old man took her in, forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex.
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Brooks raped her numerous times before she killed him. She remembered being forced at knife point to go with him for sex.
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Prosecutors had an issue with Lewis marking herself as a survivor, arguing she failed to take accountability for Brooks' death and left his children without a father.
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Lewis said, "In my mind, I felt that I wasn't safe, and I felt that I was in danger, which resulted in the act."
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Porter said The next five years of your life will be the entirety of rules you disagree with." This is your second and last chance.
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Iowa is a state which doesn't have a safe harbor law that grants trafficking victims criminal immunity.
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