Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Teen Sex Trafficking Victim Ordered to Pay $150,000 to Rapist's Family?

Episode Date: September 28, 2022

A judge has been asked to set aside his ruling that an Iowa teen must pay restitution to her rapist's family after she stabbed him dead.  Pieper Lewis,15, was reportedly being sex trafficked when she killed Zachary Brooks. According to Lewis, her boyfriend pulled a knife on her and forced her to go to Zachary Brooks’ apartment in June 2020. Lewis claimed Brooks, 37, had raped her multiple times in the weeks leading up to the slaying. Once at the apartment, Brooks allegedly made Lewis get undressed, drink alcohol, and smoke marijuana while they watched a movie. Lewis admitted to stabbing Brooks 30 times, but she claimed she did not plot to kill him. Instead, she stated that she became enraged after she woke up to Brooks raping her and ignoring her pleas to stop. Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury.  She was sentenced to five years of probation and was also ordered to pay $150,000 to the slain man’s family.  Polk County prosecutors never denied allegations that Pieper was trafficked and a rape victim.  The Des Moines Register reported that state law requires individuals convicted of homicide to pay $150,000. Polk County District Judge David M. Porter ordered the judgment, to be Brooks’ estate, after rejecting defense attorneys’ argument that he was 51 percent responsible for the deadly incident. Joining Nancy Grace Today: Kathleen Murphy - Family Attorney (North Carolina), NCDomesticlaw.com,  Twitter: @RalDivorceLaw  Dr. Carolyn West - Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Washington Tacoma, Award-winning author: " Violence in the Lives of Black Women: Battered, Black, and Blue", Filmmaker: “Let Me Tell Ya’ll ‘Bout Black Chicks: Images of Black Women in Pornography", Keynote Speaker, DrCarolynWest.com   Greg Scheffer - Former Phoenix Police Department Detective, 22 Years Specializing in Child Sexual Exploitation, Crimes Against Children, Domestic Violence and Adult Sex Crimes  Joe Scott Morgan - Professor of Forensics: Jacksonville State University, Author, "Blood Beneath My Feet", Host: "Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgan"  Phillip Joens - Breaking News Reporter, Des Moines Register (Des Moines, IA), DesMoinesRegister.com, Twitter: @Philip_Joens    See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Let me understand this. A teen sex trafficking victim is ordered to pay $150,000 to the rapist she stabbed dead. Let me just say that one more time. A teen girl is a rape victim, a victim of sex trafficking, and she's been ordered by a court to pay $150,000 to the alleged rapist that raped her family after she stabbed him.

Wait, Jackie, do I have that right? You do. Okay, I've got it right. It's not me. It's the judge. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us here at Fox Nation and Sirius XM 111. That sounds pretty bass-ackwards to me. I got an all-star

panel to make sense of what this judge did and his wisdom. But first, take a listen to our friends at WOAI 5 Des Moines. A 15-year-old female has been charged with murder after a body was found in a Des Moines apartment on Monday. Police responded to investigate a possible suicide on Evergreen Avenue, but then after looking at the body of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, they determined the manner of death did not appear to be that of a suicide. The 15-year-old female Des Moines resident has been arrested and charged with murder in the first degree. This case is still under investigation. Okay, look, I don't know all the facts yet, but just at first blush, if somebody handed me this file, my first question would be, what is a nearly 40-year-old man doing in an apartment with a 15-year-old girl without her parents or guardians knowing she's there?

What could possibly be going on? Let's see. Was he engaging her in polite conversation? Was he testing her knowledge on science or art or the theater? What do you think was going on with a 37-year-old man and a 15-year-old girl? Again, I'm Nancy Grace and this is Crime Stories. Thanks for being with us. I want you to hear one more thing before we really get started.

Take a listen to our friends at NBC. A teenager, the alleged victim of unspeakable crimes of human trafficking and rape, after fatally stabbing her alleged rapist, will stay out of prison. But a court ruling Piper Lewis must pay $150,000 to the family of the man who raped her. The events that took place on that horrific day cannot be changed as much as I wish they could. And more from NBC, listen. She says he raped her multiple times in the weeks before his death. I wish the events that took place on June 1st, 2020 never occurred. But to say there's only one victim to this story is absurd.

Her charges punishable by up to 10 years each in prison. I'm having a hard time trying to understand why this teen girl, 15 at the time, is being forced to pay $150,000 to the family of her rapist that she killed. Joining me in All-Star panel, as I mentioned before, but first I want to go to Philip Jones, breaking news reporter in Des Moines. You can find him at desmoineregister.com. Philip, that doesn't sound right. And you know, I've got a saying, every time I would train a new trial lawyer or work with a new investigator or anybody in the media, if it doesn't feel right, it's probably not right. And we, as prosecutors, are not paid to do the popular thing or the easy thing. We are paid to do the right thing.

What happened, Philip Jones? pay to do the right thing what happened philip jones so let's back up to the night of may 31st okay may 31 gotcha so for people who don't know des moines is a city of about 212 000 people it's iowa's biggest city and that was a night that the city, it was the second or third straight night, the city was undergoing some pretty tumultuous protests, protesting George Floyd's death. And so in the background of that, this teenage girl was being trafficked by a 28-year-old man who she had started living with. Christopher Brown? Our publication is not naming him because he has not been charged with a crime. Okay, but you didn't say no. Okay, go ahead.

I cannot use his name because our publication is not naming him. But so this 28-year-old man, he was a very small-time musician. Piper had run away from home three times between January and March of 2020. From her home with her parents or a foster home? Her home with her parents. She was adopted out of foster care at age three. But Piper claimed that her mother was very verbally abusive. I'm with you so far.

She ran away. And then what happened? She ran away. She fell into this complex. She lived with a person who was a sister of her classmates, had a disagreement, basically moved out. Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

So far, I agree with everything you're saying, Phil Jones, joining from the Des Moines Register. But I just want to wait just a moment. This girl has just turned 15. She ran away from home. She was in a home she'd been placed in out of foster care. Dr. Carolyn West joining me, Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Washington Tacoma, award-winning author, that's not easy,

of Violence in the Lives of Black Women, Bartered, Black, and Blue. Just think about it. She's also a filmmaker. Let me tell you all about Black Chicks, Images of Black Women in Pornography. DrCarolynWest.com I want you to take a listen to our friends at NBC News. Listen. Officials say she was a runaway seeking to escape an abusive foster home. Piper said in court that a man took her in before forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex.

She testified that one of those men was Brooks who repeatedly raped her at knife point. Police and prosecutors have not disputed Lewis was assaulted and trafficked, but they have argued that the teen girl, Piper, was assaulted and sex trafficked. They're just saying Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed. Do I have that right? Right. You know what? You just did something no lawyer I have ever met has been able to do.

You should consider law school if you aren't such a great investigative reporter. You answered in one word. I've never ever in my life seen a lawyer do that. Okay, back to you, Dr. Carolyn West, joining us, professor of clinical psychology, University of Washington Tacoma, author, filmmaker. Her resume is, her CV is two pages long. Dr. West, we've got a teen girl who ran away from foster care. She then goes to a friend of her sister's. They have an argument. She runs away. Are you surprised she fell in with a trafficker?

Why does nobody believe sex trafficking of young girls is happening right under our noses? Well, she had all the vulnerabilities. She was coming from a difficult home background. She ran away to escape that. She was facing homelessness, poverty. She had no place to stay. So perpetrators pick up on those vulnerabilities. They do, doctor. They do. They pick out particular victims. You think they're going to pick on the rich kid whose

parents went to Harvard and they're going to a private high school? Uh-uh. No, because those kids would know what to do, or some of them would anyway. It's somebody vulnerable that doesn't have anywhere to go, that has no support, that's afraid, that's kind of out there without a home. That's who they target, Dr. West. So she was vulnerable, and she had all the things that we see with neurobiology of trauma, where she's just fighting. Okay, see, we don't know what you just said. So you're going to have to break that down for us people that are just regular old JDs. What did you say?

Neurobiology of trauma. She was a traumatized child in a very vulnerable situation. So even though this guy appeared to be sleeping, she was definitely fearful. And she used violence really in what she perceived probably to be self-defense. Yeah, who wants to be raped by a stranger one more time? Crime Stories with Nancy Grace. Guys, we're trying to make sense of what we know right now,

but I've just been joined by Kathleen Murphy, family attorney. She deals with domestic law, or as it's euphemistically called, family law. Kathleen Murphy, this girl, the cops, I'm just going to take it as a given because the cops agree. This teen girl, 15, has already been raped and sex trafficked. How many men has she been forced to sleep with at age 15? I remember, okay, don't laugh, Kathleen, because I think I was either 13 or 14. My front store neighbor, Joy, told me what a period and what sex was. I'm like, no way. I jumped on my bike and rode off.

I'm either 13 or 14. I knew nothing. I thought it was a joke. I thought on my bike and rode off. I'm either 13 or 14. I knew nothing. I thought it was a joke. I thought it was hilarious. Or actually, I thought it was kind of freaky and creepy. That's what I thought and took off on my bike. I remember the moment clearly. We were right in the middle of Bevan Drive. And here's this girl is 15 and she's already been sex trafficked. And what that means is rape at age 15. Every time she's pimped out, she's being raped. Yeah, I'd stab whoever it took to get out of that apartment. Amen, Nancy.

Amen. And I see children all the time in the court systems and my heart just breaks for them because they're facing these adult issues that they are just not competent to be able to handle. And then on top of that, the trauma, the poverty, you're being sexually assaulted. I would ask, why wouldn't she do it when he was asleep? Bravo, bravo, bravo. Yeah, I don't think you and I are going to win any awards for agreeing with the so-called murderer. Hey, join me right now in addition to Kathleen

Murphy, Phillip Jones, and Dr. Carolyn West is Joe Scott Morgan forensics expert and Greg Sheffer. Now listen to Sheffer, former Phoenix Police Department detective, 22 years specialty child sexploitation and crimes on children. He is investigated with Hope for Justice, which is an international human trafficking organization. Wow. Let's just say that at the get go. But Greg Sheffer, OK, can we just talk about even if what police are saying is true, that she stabbed her rapist in his sleep,

and they are saying that she was raped and trafficked, they are giving me, that's a given. We don't have to say, well, that's what she says. That's what the cops say, the ones that charged her with homicide. Could you tell the people that are listening and watching right now what happens to teen girls when they are sex trafficked? The life that they lead, up to 20 to 30 sex partners, and I'm saying that in quotas a day moving from. Well, there's not a nice way to put it that the FCC wouldn't like very much.

Let's just say flop house to flop house. Man after man after man. Vaginal sex, anal sex, oral sex, you name it. Fifteen years old. And then the pimp very often will get them on drugs until they're this big, you know, they weigh 89 pounds, and they finally just die or kill them. You tell it. Well, basically these girls, not even just girls, but boys and girls, they live with that trauma, obviously, for the rest of their lives.

So anybody that deals with trauma knows that it affects every aspect of their life so from that point forward whatever trauma they have if they if it's not processed properly or dealt with through therapy or process you know it's like a ticking time bomb uh where one day it all comes to a head and it can ruin a life. Obviously, trauma does. And this type of sex trafficking, it knows no colors. It knows no races. It knows no class system. It goes across the board.

You know, I've seen really rich girls get pulled into sex trafficking and then girls that are doing survival sex, and they get pulled into sex trafficking. What's survival sex? I've never heard of that. That's basically your runaways. They're out there on the street. I don't know what the current statistics are, but usually within three days, they say that

someone on the street is going to resort to a survival sex mode just to survive. And so a runaway out on the street doing that, they're going to get pulled into that type of lifestyle. And sex traffickers are very good at identifying vulnerable girls and boys. And whether they're rich or poor, they can identify a weakness or a vulnerability in that girl, exploit it, and pull them into the sex trafficking lifestyle. Speaking of, Greg Sheffer joining us from Hope for Justice International Human Trafficking Organization. Greg, just give me a day in the life of a teen girl sex trafficking victim. Well, the girls I spoke to, you know, like I said, they come from all walks of life.

And you have different sex traffickers out there. You have ones that try to seduce them and play the boyfriend role. And then you have the very violent ones that force them into the life. And so once they're in the life, generally, if they're working like on the street, they're going to be required to work on the street. They're going to be required to get a certain amount of money a day. And in my background, most of the girls had to make $1,000 a day and they couldn't come back until they did. They work 365 days a year. There's no, you know, you don't get any breaks. And if they're lucky, they get a decent place to stay. But generally, they just use the customers to stay in hotel rooms while they're doing work.

They'll just take the room from the customer or the Johns. And that's their life. And that's a day-to-day thing. And they never see any of that money. It goes to the traffickers. And then down the road, they might end up having a child there. And then that child gets held sort of ransom against them or it gets placed into family and they never even get to see their children so it the subculture of prostitution and sex craft trafficking it's it's uh it's a fascinating thing to study but it's a horrible life and when you talk to them, the trauma and the pain that you see is enormous. And again, that's why I do this job now, because I want to try to help those victims.

That's why I gravitated that as a cop. I will never forget, Greg, the first sex trafficking case I prosecuted. The girl was 13, and we worked so hard to put this case together. And I worked the street for, oh, my stars, over a month along with some vice cops to try and find the girl because the girl vanished. And I remember one day I was in the courthouse, and I got a call. We think we spotted her. I go out.

It was freezing cold. I jumped in a county car, which, of course, you can spot a mile away. It's a big, like a continental, something like that, old county issue. Anyway, we get over there. I go in the room where this, she's about to turn 14, girl was. I went in. There were a bunch of women in there, like you're saying. They're all in one hotel room.

I looked around. I came back out. She's not a girl in there. And they went, yes, she is. She's the one in the white stack boots. I'm like, okay. I went back in there and looked at her. By the time we got the weave off her head and all the makeup and the push-up bra and put her in regular clothes, she looked like a 12-year-old girl.

The way they had her made up at first, and I knew what the girl looked like. I couldn't even identify her, Dr. Carolyn West. Oh, and P.S. by the time we got to trial, she was so scared she ran away again. I was up till five o'clock in the morning trying to find her, looking at all her hangouts and hidey holes till we found her. And were both convicted by the way but Dr. Carolyn West that what does that do to a girl are you surprised she stabbed the guy no I'm not surprised at all I mean these girls are oftentimes and young men too are oftentimes very traumatized because as your guest said they they've been exposed to all types of trauma. We have to understand that they're not perpetrators. They really are victims. Under

federal and state law, anyone under the age of 18 who commits a commercial sex act is a trafficking victim. Piper, the young girl in this story, really should not have been charged. She should have been given services. So the whole system failed her. Well, I got to tell you, to you, Kathleen Murphy, you know, it'll be a cold day in H-E-L-L. I'll let somebody give me a sob story about why they committed murder. Boo hoo. The victim's still dead, but not in this case. This is a young, did you know this girl is about the same age of my twins?

Lucy? Hon, this girl is the same age as my son. And when Greg was talking about boys being trafficked, I just lost it. I just lost it. So imagine, I have three girls as well. Your son getting raped 15, 20 times a day. Your daughter, your son. It is, it is bravo. Bravo to this young lady for standing up. You know, you're going to get me in a whole heap of trouble if you keep saying bravo to the killer. Okay. That said,

well, you know what? I don't either because I think this is wrong. I think this is wrong. Guys, I want you to take a listen to our cut to, this is Brian Tabig at KCRG 9. This is an unusual case. Sarah O'Reilly, a Cedar Rapids attorney, also questions whether the county attorney should have brought charges against the then 15-year-old, who described being repeatedly raped by the man she killed and sex trafficked by another man. If I was a prosecutor under this situation, I would not have brought charges. But ultimately, that decision lies with the county attorney. And I want you to hear claims made by the girl, Piper Lewis. Take a listen to the CEO of Chains Interrupted, Teresa Davidson, speaking to our friends at KCRG. Piper Lewis was arrested, prosecuted, and detained for over two years

while her trafficker is free to this day. And the people that bought her, she mentioned multiple people buying her during that time. They're free to this day. What kind of message does that send to people who've been exploited and abused and trafficked? To Philip Jones, breaking news reporter, Des Moines Register, buying her. It sounds like modern day slavery. Yeah, this case, you know, to your point, hit a nerve with a lot of people in Iowa. You know, they were, the county attorney told one of my colleagues, his name is John Sarkone,

that, you know, this case reached a satisfying resolution because they saw the side. You know, when I spoke with Piper's attorneys throughout the process of reporting this story over the last two years, you know, they repeatedly told me that they thought the police department detectives were blind to the fact that another crime occurred, you know, that they were focused on stabbing the, or on, on solving the stabbing. You know, this, this was a very violent crime. I should state this, you know, she stabbed Mr. Brooks about over 30 times. Were any of those in the crotch?

I'm just curious. No, I don't know. She said in the plea agreement that she stabbed him in the arms, legs and groin with the intent to injure. And then it ended up killing him. You know, but this case really did hit a nerve with a lot of people here and nationally, to your point, too, because they've been frustrated by this decision to not only charge her. Who is the judge that did this? So it's a district court judge. His name is David M. Porter.

Whoa, wait a minute. Wait a minute. David M. as in Mother Porter? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Did you say district court judge? okay go ahead uh well and so so if if you're not uh for your listeners who don't know the law here in Iowa um in Iowa any person convicted of a felony um in which a person dies. In this case, Piper pled guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury so that she could plead down from first degree murder.

I will back up and say that originally, because she was only 15 when this happened, her case was not automatically moved to adult court, but it was waived to adult court eventually. And so she faced a charge of first degree murder. So she pled down and got what a voluntary. Yeah. Pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and bullful injury.

That was the compromise reached for a plea agreement. Okay. Hold on. So she pleads guilty and this is the judge that ordered her to pay $150,000 restitution to her rapist family. Is that right? That's what I want to know right now. Right.

Yeah. Just a second. I want to figure something else out. Philip Jones joining me from the Des Moines Register. Joe Scott Morgan, professor of forensics, Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet on Amazon, star of a hit new series on I Heart and Beyond Body Bags with Joe Scott Morgan.

Joe Scott, thank you for being with us. Let me ask you something. They are saying as a given that this teen girl, just turned 15, was raped and sex trafficked. How would we be able to prove that forensically? if she said that she had been raped just prior to the stabbing, could we have proven that forensically? Yeah, absolutely. At this age, and particularly with this ongoing abuse, Nancy, that she was suffering, there would be obvious signs of sexual trauma.

And I'm talking about from a physical manifestation with her. And, you know, we can dive into those details if you wish, but they're rather forward. Yeah, of course. I want the details. Well, obviously,

a rape exam would have to be performed there at the local hospital. They would do a rape kit just, you know, like we do in other cases of sexual assault and certainly sex-related homicide. There would be a kit that was deployed at the hospital.

Hopefully, there would be what's called a SANE nurse, which is a sexual assault nurse examiner there that is specialized in this area that would do the examination and document it. And all of these items would be collected and submitted for testing. Now, we've got a real problem in this country with rape kits that are not being processed. I hope in this case that they would have done that. But, you know, there was something a reporter said just a moment ago that kind of troubled me relative to this case. He said a lot that troubled me. Go ahead.

Well, specifically... Let's don't kill the messenger. No, and I'm not. What I'm saying is that he made a profound statement in that the police were looking at this as a one-off crime. You're simply dealing with a homicide and not dealing with a sexual assault. So with that, one of the biggest problems we face in forensics is timeliness. That is getting to do the examination as quickly as you possibly can. I think that

somebody's feet needs to be held to the fire relative to this. Did they take this young girl in? Did they have her appropriately examined and then when that happened did they appropriately collect the evidence and submit it to the state crime lab guys we're talking to joe scott morgan professor forensics about a 15 year old young girl that cops admit was forcibly trafficked to other men for sex by her then homicide victim. Their problem is not all the sex trafficking and the raping of a teen girl over and over and over every single day, but the fact that she finally hauled off and stabbed him. Guys, take a listen now to your friends at WOI Local 5. 17-year-old Piper Lewis entered court shackled and wearing a blue jumpsuit. Her attorneys requested she be allowed to wear street clothes, but that request denied by the judge.

Her team called six witnesses to the stand to testify about Lewis's actions, what led up to her stabbing the alleged rapist, and how she's doing now. A doctor described her as someone who has depression, anxiety, and had a bad childhood and says for her to recover, she needs to do whatever time she gets in a foster home-like environment. What do we know about this girl, Piper Lewis? Listen to our friends at CrimeOnline.com. Piper Lewis was just three years old when she was adopted out of foster care by billy and leslie lewis a divorce split the family when piper was in eighth grade lewis says that's when her mother became mentally and emotionally abusive with tensions high at home lewis ran away three

times the second time she ran away she reported being sexually assaulted at the Youth Emergency Services and Shelter Facility in Des Moines. The third time she ran away reportedly came after her mother accused her of being promiscuous. 15-year-old Lewis went to live with an older sister of a classmate, but moved out after an argument, sleeping in the hallways. A 40-year-old man in the complex took Lewis in. What more do we know? Listen. The 40-year-old man who took Piper Lewis in reportedly beat her, gave her cocaine, and tried to make her have sex with his cousins. Lewis went back to sleeping in the hallways. That's when she met and moved in with the 28-year-old musician Christopher Brown.

Lewis says while she considered Brown to be her boyfriend, he signed her up for dating sites, then arranged for her to have sex with men for money at least seven or eight times. Through the musician, Lewis met another man, Zach Brooks, at a house party. Brown told Lewis that she had to stay with Brooks while Brown's daughter and her mother visited. Lewis says Brooks gave her alcohol and marijuana and over the weekend had sex with her five times while she was unconscious. And guess what? That's not all. Listen. The day before Zach Brooks died, Lewis was forced to return to Brooks' apartment. Lewis says she was threatened by Brown at knife point. Brooks picked Lewis up at the musician's apartment at 10 p.m. and reportedly planned to

give Brown $50 worth of marijuana in exchange for sex acts. At the apartment, according to Lewis's statement, Brooks ordered Lewis to take off her clothes and, along with two other people at the apartment, pressured her into drinking vodka and smoking marijuana. Lewis fell asleep. When she woke up, she says Brooks was raping her. Lewis screamed but couldn't stop him. As Brooks slept, Lewis gathered her clothes and saw a knife on the nightstand and was overcome with rage after realizing she had been raped again. Lewis stabbed Brooks and left the apartment, returning to her musician friend's home. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

To Philip Jones joining us, investigative news reporter in Des Moines with the Des Moines Register. Philip Jones, are any of those facts in dispute? No, no. Prosecutors and police detectives really never disputed the claims of sex trafficking. But despite that, the musician was never interviewed again by police detectives, even once it became apparent that Piper was a victim of sex trafficking you know up until the sentencing hearings that happened the past couple weeks prosecutors inevitably affirmed the fact that she was a victim of sex trafficking but they did it

and then during those hearings they actually did confirm that she was a victim of sex trafficking. So she wakes up from being unconscious, discovers she has been raped, and then stabs her attacker 30 times, and cops deem he was asleep at the time? Or does she say he was asleep at the time, Philip? In her plea, she said he was asleep. I mean, there were two people there that night, but there's no reason to dispute that. But that makes a big difference under Iowa law because there are a lot of people who've said to me that they think this is an obvious case of self-defense.

Iowa does have a standard ground law, but that law and another law that would protect people under a self-defense statute would not apply according to Iowa law because prosecutors made the argument that she stabbed Mr. Brooks while he was sleeping after the commission of a forcible felony. In Iowa, you can defend yourself from imminent threat during the commission of a forcible felony, but in this case, Mr. Brooks had gotten off of her and the forcible felony had been finished. And so prosecutors argued at sentencing that she could have left. You know, she was gathering her clothes when she made the decision to stop him

and she could have walked right out the front door. Got it. Dr. Carolyn West joining me, clinical psychologist. What do you make of that? What I make of that is that oftentimes the laws don't reflect the reality for victims. That under the law, they may have assumed that she could have just simply walked away or gotten herself out, that she wasn't in danger at that particular moment when she stabbed him. But in the mind of survivors, that just may not really seem to be the case, given her vulnerability and the level of trauma that she had experienced.

Take a listen to Kelly Marie Meek from the Iowa Coalition Against Sex Assault from KCRG9. Kelly Marie Meek works at the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual Assault as the prevention and public health coordinator. She says 17-year-old Piper Lewis shouldn't have to spend five years in a women's rehab center and pay $150,000 in restitution. I'm grateful that she's not in prison, but still very worried when I think about the amount of perfection and the standards that she's going to be held to for the next five years under very close supervision. The standard to which this young girl is going to be held. Well, you know what? Let's hear from Piper Lewis herself. Take a listen. Walking through the fire,

a phoenix like me carries on its back as it rises from the ashes. This means I face rape, abuse, hatred, betrayal, manipulation, abandonment, loss of a parent, loneliness, and self-relevation. The list goes on and on. I wonder what else I will carry in that sack of beautiful pain. I often ask myself why I hurt. The answer is clear. Hurt people hurt people, Whether it's intentional or not, giving up. But yet again, some days I feel like giving up. But yet again, I am the light at the end of the tunnel. I flicker brighter than the simple thought of my

own future. I must prevail. I own the power to take accountability. I do not fear the thought of further incarceration. I fear not being able to accomplish some of my goals. I even graduated high school at age 17 a year ahead of my class. I'm going to be a fashion and graphic designer, open up my business titled Pi, create a place of comfort and acceptance for girls like me, become a juvenile justice advocate for youth in Iowa. Be a counselor. Start a family and tell my story.

No matter what the next chapter is, I will still rise. To Greg Sheffer, joining me, former Phoenix PD, now investigator with Hope for Justice, who investigates and tries to stop human trafficking. When I hear this little girl talking about being a phoenix rising out of the ashes, her dream to be a counselor and start a family and tell her story, it nearly breaks my heart. Well, yeah, but it's a silver lining because she has that passion. There's a lot of other trauma victims that don't even have that path yet, but she's already had that path within her. So that's a very good thing. trying to catch up to modern day thinking in regards to sex trafficking.

Because, and correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Jones, I think the Iowa law requires that restitution. There's no leeway. It's a requirement. And I don't think Iowa has the safe harbor aspect that some other states have that gives sex trafficking victims some immunity for that restitution. And as far as the law enforcement, a lot of law enforcement, if they're not educated, they see things, you know, one way. This is a stabbing. We're going to solve the stabbing. We have a stabbing suspect and a stabbing victim, and that's what they do they don't look at the big picture this is not the first time a rape victim has been punished there's a case of crystal abelseth the rape victim has to pay off the rapist listen he offered to bring me home that night because

my friend wanted to leave early krista abelseth knows all too well about overcoming adversity the 32 year old is the mother of a 16-year-old, who we are not naming or identifying because she's a minor. She was also born from a rape. It was a 30-year-old man, and I was 16. Ableseth recalls meeting this man, John Barnes, at a bar in Hammond back in 2005. He offered to take her home. Instead of bringing me home, he brought me to his home.

And once inside, he proceeded to rape me on his living room couch. And from that rape, that statutory rape, she has a child, and now her rapist wants child support? He hasn't even been raising the baby, ever. That is the case of Abelseth, but then in our Cut 32, you hear about yet another rape victim. He served jail time again after being convicted of raping another victim between the ages of 13 and 15 years old in 2010. But last month, Sanilac County Prosecuting Attorney James V. Young and Sanilac District Court Judge Gregory Ross signed a paternity order that gives Tiffany's attacker joint legal custody of their son and the right to pursue parenting time. I was receiving government

assistance and they told me if I did not tell them who the father was of my child that they would take that away from me. Right now to Philip Jones, I've got so many other similar cases where rape victims have been punished, essentially. What is the latest in this case, Philip Jones? So on Monday, Lewis's attorneys argued to District Judge David M. Porter that he should overturn his own decision and not require Lewis to pay $150,000 to the estate of Brooks. Porter cited in his decision, cited a 2017 Iowa Supreme Court ruling in which a Cedar Rapids teen plotted with her 19-year-old boyfriend to kill a man and rob him of two thousand dollars in this filing on monday they argued that the cases are fundamentally different because lewis did not plan to kill brooks and that she only killed him because he raped her and caused her to be put into this fit of rage

they also argue that under the iowa constitution under the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Lewis should be excluded or should be prohibited from paying excessive fines. But for the conduct of her sex trafficker, Piper would never have met Mr. Brooks, and Mr. Brooks, in turn, never would have had the opportunity to rape this 15-year-old homeless runaway girl they wrote finally uh they argued that lewis received a deferred judgment and in a deferred judgment a guilty verdict is technically withheld even after a person admits the guilt to which they were charged with um the cedar rapids teen cited by brooks did not or cited by porter did not receive a deferred judgment. So they argued that a deferred judgment is punitive and not rehabilitative at all. If Porter does not overturn his decision, they asked him to stay his decision so that they can appeal it to either the Iowa Court of Appeals or the Iowa Supreme Court. I'm very curious what's going to happen to the judge that ordered this girl to pay $150,000 to her rapist that she killed. Now, according to the judge, he had to do that under the law. And I say,

as a legal expert, if that is the law, then the law is an ass. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.