Fundraiser covers $150K owed family of alleged rapist
A fundraiser for an Iowa teen who killed a person she was pimped out to coated the $150,000 restitution she was ordered to pay his household in lower than 24 hours.
The GoFundMe effort for Pieper Lewis, 17 — launched by her former math instructor Leland Schipper — collected greater than $350,000 by Thursday morning from over 9,000 donors. Schipper had upped the aim to $200,000 on Wednesday.
Schipper wrote the additional money will assist Lewis pursue a school diploma or begin her personal enterprise — and provides her “the monetary capability to discover methods to assist different younger victims of intercourse crimes!”
As a 15-year-old runaway sleeping within the hallways of a Des Moines condo constructing, Lewis alleged she was pimped out to a number of males, amongst them 37-year-old Zachary Brooks.
After Brooks allegedly raped the teenager a number of instances, she grabbed a knife and stabbed him 30 instances, killing him, in June 2020. Prosecutors argued the teenager attacked Brooks whereas he was asleep and posed no fast risk.
Lewis was initially charged with first-degree homicide within the horrific case; final 12 months she agreed to plead responsible to lesser expenses of involuntary manslaughter and willful harm.
At a sentencing listening to Tuesday, Polk County District Choose David Porter ordered the teenager to serve 5 years of supervised probation and to pay $150,000 in restitution to Brooks’ household, saying “this courtroom is offered with no different possibility” due to Iowa’s state regulation.
Underneath the circumstances of her launch, if Lewis violates her probation she could possibly be despatched to jail for 20 years. She’ll additionally must put on a GPS machine and serve 200 hours of group service.
“My spirit has been burned, however nonetheless glows by way of the flames,” Lewis learn from a ready assertion through the listening to. “Hear me roar, see me glow, and watch me develop. I’m a survivor.”
Throughout her two years in juvenile detention, Lewis earned her GED.
“Pieper needs to go to varsity, she needs to create artwork, and he or she needs to advocate for different women who discover themselves in conditions like she endured,” Schipper wrote within the GoFundMe description. “She doesn’t deserve an enormous debt looming over her, holding her again from pursuing her ambitions.”
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