Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Sept 15 (Reuters) – Donations for an Iowa teenager poured in on Thursday, doubling the $150,000 a court ordered her to pay to the family of a man she killed after allegedly sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions. As of Thursday morning, a GoFundMe fundraiser for Pieper Lewis, 17, had raised more than $340,000, far surpassing its $200,000 goal, less than two days after a judge convicted the Des Moines teenager of killing the accused rapist her, whom he stabbed. death in 2020. “As the donations have increased, I’m very happy at the prospect of taking that burden off Pieper,” said Leland Schipper, her former high school math teacher, who created the page to help pay restitution and of her education. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and voluntary injury in June 2021, a year after she killed Zachary Brooks, 37, in Des Moines. Lewis was 15 and homeless when she met Brooks in May 2020. Lewis said she was a victim of sex trafficking and that Brooks sexually assaulted her the night they met and again the night she stabbed him to death in a fit of rage while he slept. “My story can change things. My story has changed me,” Lewis said at her sentencing hearing Tuesday. “The events that happened on that horrible day cannot be changed, as much as I wish I could.” During the hearing, Polk County Judge David Porter sentenced Lewis to five years of probation and ordered her to perform 1,200 hours of community service. He also ordered her to pay $150,000 to Brooks’ family, saying she was bound by Iowa law to require her to pay restitution, the Des Moines Register reported. Her lawyers were considering appealing the restitution order. Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller’s office said the donations can be used to pay restitution, the Des Moines Register reported. Sign up now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.comSign up Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Chicago. edited by Jonathan Oatis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
