Des Moines teen sex trafficking victim who killed alleged rapist returns to court Tuesday
A sentencing hearing for Pieper Lewis, the teenage sex trafficking victim from Des Moines convicted of killing her alleged rapist, will resume Tuesday morning at the Polk County Courthouse.
Pieper Lewis, now 17, stabbed Zachary Brooks to death in the early hours of June 1, 2020. Brooks, 37, of Des Moines raped Lewis, then 15, five times in the weeks before Lewis killed him after another alleged sexual assault, according to a plea agreement.
A sentencing hearing on Sept. 7 ended before Lewis could give her statement of allocution and before witnesses called by prosecutors finished testifying.
More:A homeless Des Moines teen who killed her alleged rapist faces 20 years in prison. She's a victim, too, her attorneys say.
Polk County Judge David M. Porter presided over the hearing and will determine Lewis' sentence. He could rule from the bench or issue his ruling before her 18th birthday on Sept. 28.
What to know about the case
Lewis admitted to stabbing Brooks 30 times with a knife she found on a nightstand near his bed at his apartment after he assaulted her, but wrote in a plea agreement that she did not plan his killing.
Her attorneys argued that Lewis, who was homeless after running away from what she said was an abusive relationship with her adoptive parents, was a sex trafficking victim who was sent to Brooks' apartment by a 28-year-old man she was staying with at the time.
Lewis was arrested on June 2, 2020, the day after the killing, and charged with first-degree murder. She pleaded guilty in June 2021 to charges of voluntary manslaughter and willful injury, both felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison. For the past two years she has been held at the Polk County Juvenile Detention Center.
Prosecutors never disputed claims that Lewis was sexually assaulted or trafficked. The Register is not naming the 28-year-old man who allegedly trafficked Lewis because he has not been charged with a crime. Polk County Attorney John Sarcone declined to comment in August when asked if other charges could be filed, other than, "Law enforcement continues to actively investigate all aspects of this matter."
More on Pieper Lewis' childhood
Billy and Leslie Lewis adopted Lewis out of foster care when she was 3.
Until eighth grade Lewis had a typical childhood, neurologist Dr. Robert Kinscherff said in juvenile court last summer after evaluating her. That's when Lewis' parents divorced, and when her mother became "mentally and emotionally abusive," Lewis told the Register in response to written questions.
Leslie Lewis and her attorney have not responded to multiple requests for comment by the Des Moines Register. Attempts to reach Billy Lewis were unsuccessful before his death in October 2021.
In January 2020, Lewis was caught with marijuana at Lincoln High School, and her mom was called to school, according to court papers. Des Moines police officer Dusty Chapline later said Leslie Lewis said "terrible" things to her daughter, according to court records.
“She kept telling her that she was going to be a criminal,” Chapline said, according to the records. “She was never going to amount to anything. Just giving her no hope. ... I would never speak to my children like that.”
Chapline declined to comment when reached by the Register.
Lewis said her treatment at home caused her to run away three times from January through March 2020, according to her plea. Lewis was sexually assaulted at the Youth Emergency Services Shelter the second time she ran away, in January 2020, her attorneys wrote. When she returned and told her parents about the assault, Leslie Lewis accused her of being promiscuous, said Matthew Sheeley, one of her attorneys. That reaction prompted her to run away again, her attorneys said.
Lewis was arrested on June 2, 2020, the day after the killing, and charged with first-degree murder. She pleaded guilty in June 2021 to charges of voluntary manslaughter and willful injury, both felonies punishable by up to 10 years in prison. For the past two years she has been held at the Polk County Juvenile Detention Center.
Prosecutors never disputed claims that Lewis was sexually assaulted or trafficked. The Register is not naming the 28-year-old man who allegedly trafficked Lewis because he has not been charged with a crime. Polk County Attorney John Sarcone declined to comment in August when asked if other charges could be filed, other than, "Law enforcement continues to actively investigate all aspects of this matter."
More on Pieper Lewis' childhood
Billy and Leslie Lewis adopted Lewis out of foster care when she was 3.
Until eighth grade Lewis had a typical childhood, neurologist Dr. Robert Kinscherff said in juvenile court last summer after evaluating her. That's when Lewis' parents divorced, and when her mother became "mentally and emotionally abusive," Lewis told the Register in response to written questions.
Leslie Lewis and her attorney have not responded to multiple requests for comment by the Des Moines Register. Attempts to reach Billy Lewis were unsuccessful before his death in October 2021.
In January 2020, Lewis was caught with marijuana at Lincoln High School, and her mom was called to school, according to court papers. Des Moines police officer Dusty Chapline later said Leslie Lewis said "terrible" things to her daughter, according to court records.
“She kept telling her that she was going to be a criminal,” Chapline said, according to the records. “She was never going to amount to anything. Just giving her no hope. ... I would never speak to my children like that.”
Chapline declined to comment when reached by the Register.
Lewis said her treatment at home caused her to run away three times from January through March 2020, according to her plea. Lewis was sexually assaulted at the Youth Emergency Services Shelter the second time she ran away, in January 2020, her attorneys wrote. When she returned and told her parents about the assault, Leslie Lewis accused her of being promiscuous, said Matthew Sheeley, one of her attorneys. That reaction prompted her to run away again, her attorneys said.
Lewis lived briefly with an older sister of one of her Lincoln High classmates at the Oakview Terrace Apartment Complex, but after an argument, she moved out in April 2020, according to her attorneys. At this point, Lewis was still 15, homeless and sleeping on stairs at the complex.
A 40-year-old man took Lewis in, but beat her, gave her cocaine and tried to make her into sexual situations, her attorneys wrote. So she returned to sleeping in Oakview hallways, where she met a 28-year-old man who is a small-time musician.
Lewis and the musician told the Register and investigators vastly different accounts of about their interactions. He told detectives after Lewis' arrest that he saw her living in the hallway, took pity on her and allowed her to stay with him, according to a police transcript.
Report:Most states treat young people ensnared by sex trafficking as criminals instead of victims
What led up to Lewis killing Brooks?
Lewis initially met Brooks at a party she attended at a house near Weeks Middle School, she told Des Moines police.
Brooks grew up in Des Moines and attended Des Moines Public Schools before getting his GED. The father of three worked as a bus driver in Ankeny, moved to Fort Dodge and worked for a transit company, then moved back to Des Moines about six weeks before his death. His brother, Deondre Calaway, described Brooks as a loving father and proud dog owner. Calaway told the Register he saw Lewis at Brooks' apartment once; Brooks said she was over age 18, he said.
Sometime in May 2020, the musician first made Lewis stay with Brooks, according to her plea agreement. Brooks gave her alcohol and marijuana, she became intoxicated, and then he had sex with her multiple times while she was unconscious over the weekend, she wrote in her plea.
Iowa's age for sexual consent is 16 years old. Teens ages 14 and 15 can consent with people within 48 months of their age, according to Iowa law.
"I did not want to have sex with Mr. Brooks," Lewis wrote in her plea. "I did not want to go to Mr. Brooks' apartment, but I had no other place to go."
The day before the killing, on May 31, 2020, the musician said he wanted her to go to Brooks' apartment again and held a knife to her throat to compel her to go, according to her plea. At 10 p.m. Brooks picked Lewis up at the musician's apartment.
Brooks planned to pay the musician $50 worth of marijuana in exchange for Lewis going to Brooks' apartment and performing sex acts, her attorneys wrote.
Once Lewis got to Brooks' apartment, she was ordered to disrobe, according to her plea. Brooks and two other people pressured her into drinking vodka and smoking marijuana while they watched a movie, according to a search warrant.
“My initial thought was that Mr. Brooks was drunk and would likely fall asleep while watching the movie,” Lewis wrote in her plea. “I thought that this was the only way to stop him from having sex with me.”
But Lewis fell asleep first. When she woke up, Brooks was raping her; she screamed for him to get off of her, but couldn't stop him, she said in court documents.
Afterward, she gathered her clothes while Brooks slept, she said in the plea. That's when she saw the knife on the nearby nightstand and snapped.
“I suddenly realized that Mr. Brooks had raped me yet again and (I) was overcome with rage,” Lewis wrote in her plea.
Lewis fled from Brooks' apartment in his Dodge Charger and ended up back at the musician's apartment. A maintenance man found Brooks’ body that evening. Police arrested Lewis at the musician's apartment the next day.
Lewis' case is 'perfect example' of the control used by human traffickers
The relationship Lewis described with the musician is a "perfect example" of human trafficking, Patrick Waymire, the Iowa Department of Public Safety intelligence director, said in an interview. Waymire was not involved in Lewis' investigation.
"It's a perfect example of control," Waymire said. "That's a way people control somebody else."
Lewis considered the musician her "boyfriend," according to her plea. Traffickers make victims feel like they're part of their family so they will never leave, Waymire said.
Victims often do not realize they are victims, said Gretchen Brown-Waech, victim rights and human trafficking coordinator in the Office of Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller.
Matty Tate-Smith, a spokesperson for the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said Lewis was treated like a “throwaway child” whose support systems repeatedly failed her and made her a targeted victim of sex trafficking.
“There was very clearly a power dynamic between her and (the musician) where he used her to get what he wanted,” Tate-Smith said.
Many people stereotype human trafficking as cases when a person is kidnapped, held in chains and smuggled across state lines, Waymire said. But usually trafficking happens in more manipulative ways that coerce victims into having sex with abusers and staying with them, said Waymire, Tate-Smith and Brown-Waech.
Lewis needed shelter, food and love; the musician, Brooks and others allegedly preyed on that and coerced her into sex and drug abuse, Tate-Smith said.
"Force is what people think of. That's not very common," Brown-Waech said. "Fraud is slightly more common and easier to prove. Coercion is the one that's most common, least understood and least proven."
Under federal and state law, anyone under age 18 who commits a commercial sex act is a trafficking victim, Brown-Waech said.
“It does not require proof of force, fraud or coercion,” Brown-Waech said.
Yet there are cases where charges aren't pursued against an alleged trafficker even when underage women are killed or otherwise harmed by others, she said.
Recapping Day 1 of Lewis' sentencing hearing
Seven witnesses testified during the first part of the hearing Sept. 7. Lewis' defense team of lawyers Sheeley, Paul White and Magdalena Reese questioned six witnesses who mostly spoke highly of Lewis.
If Lewis is sent to prison she would likely be sent to the Iowa Correctional Institute for Women in Mitchellville. Dan Larson is the program administrator at the Polk County Juvenile Detention Center and previously worked at the prison in Mitchellville. Larson recommended Lewis not be sent to prison.
"There's a lot of freedom of the inmates in Mitchellville that could be a very bad influence to Pieper," Larson said. "I don't know if that's going to be helpful for her at all."
Jana Rhoads, a Des Moines service area manager with the Iowa Department of Human Services, said Lewis could re-enroll in foster care when she turns age 18 Sept. 28. Under Iowa law people can stay in foster care until they are 23 years old.
Lewis struggled at times with the freedom given to her at the Highland House youth home program in Des Moines, however the program was not the structured environment she needs, according to Rhoads and her attorneys.
Prosecutors honed in on rules violations Lewis committed during the three weeks in February that she was at Highland House. Lewis contacted her sister and peers, which broke the rules of her placement there. This peer contact eventually led to the 28-year-old man who allegedly trafficked her from finding her location, according to Kinscherff's testimony.
During her stay there Lewis was enrolled in Des Moines Public Schools' Virtual Campus. In court exhibits posted Thursday, Lewis wrote that she did not realize that she could not talk to classmates on Microsoft Teams.
Previously:Des Moines teen sex trafficking victim who killed alleged rapist to be sentenced Wednesday
"I'm willing to take accountability for my actions," Lewis wrote in the document.
“Pieper made mistakes while she was there. It didn’t provide her all the support and services she needed," Rhoads testified.
Wednesday Westerhold, Lewis' Iowa Department of Human Services case manager, said she is extremely artistic. Through the non-profit ArtForce Iowa Lewis designed jerseys for the Iowa Wolves, Des Moines' NBA G-League team.
Lewis graduated from high school in July and wants to go to college, create a business, advocate for other girls in her situation and create clothing, Westerhold said.
"She’s expressed consistently that she doesn’t want those relationships (with the people who exploited her) and that she wants to distance herself from them so that she can be successful," Westerhold testified.
Philip Joens covers public safety, city government and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register. He can be reached at 515-443-3347 at pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.