An Iowa sex trafficking victim who killed her alleged rapist and was sentenced to probation in September escaped from a women’s center in the early hours Friday.
According to the Associated Press, Pieper Lewis, now 18, was seen walking out of the building at the Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines shortly after 6 a.m. Authorities say that at some point Lewis’ GPS monitor was cut off.
A warrant has been issued for Lewis’ arrest, the Des Moines Register newspaper reported. The probation report asked for the teen’s deferred judgment to be revoked and have her original sentence imposed.
Lewis could now face up to 20 years in prison.
ESSENCE first reported news of Lewis following her sentence from an Iowa court. Polk County Judge David M. Porter ordered her to spend five years on probation at the Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines.
Last year, Lewis pleaded to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks.
At the time, Lewis was 15 and a runway. She claimed that she was taken in by Christopher Brown, a 28-year-old-man who lived in the apartment building where she slept in the hallways. The man then trafficked her to other men for sex.
Allegedly, one of those men was Brooks. In the weeks before the murder, Brooks had raped her multiple times. Lewis says she was forced at knifepoint by Brown to go with Brooks to his apartment for sex. Lewis told officials that in a fit of rage, after having been raped again by Brooks, she grabbed a knife from a bedside table and stabbed him.
Though prosecutors did not doubt that Lewis endured repeated sexual abuse, they argued Brooks was a sleep at the time of the murder. Therefore, Lewis was not in immediate danger.
She was also ordered to pay $150,000 restitution to Brooks’ family. A GoFundMe campaign raised over $560,000 to cover the restitution and pay for her other needs.