Pieper Lewis plea hearing scheduled over probation violation

By KAALTV

FILE - Pieper Lewis gives her allocution during a sentencing hearing, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. Iowa authorities say Lewis, an 18-year-old sex trafficking victim who pleaded guilty to killing a man she said raped her escaped from a women's center where she was serving her probation sentence. Lewis was seen walking out of the building at the Fresh Start Women's Center in Des Moines shortly after 6:15 a.m. Friday, Nov. 4, 2022. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Des Moines Register via AP, File)[ASSOCIATED PRESS/Zach Boyden-Holmes]

(ABC 6 News) – Pieper Lewis appeared in a Polk County, Iowa court on Thursday where a judge set a plea hearing in her probation violation case, according to court records.

In September 2022, the now 18-year-old Lewis was sentenced after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the 2020 death of Zachary Brooks. Lewis claimed she was a victim of sex trafficking and that Brooks had raped her repeatedly.

Lewis was 15-years-old when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment.

The judge deferred the 20-year prison sentence in her conviction in the case and instead sentenced her to five years of probation and 600 hours of community service. She was also ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to Brooks’ family.

In November 2022, Lewis was seen walking out the Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines where she was serving her sentence, and at some point that same day her GPS monitor was cut off, according to a probation violation report.

She was taken back into custody a few days later and booked into the Polk County Jail.

Details of Thursday’s plea offered to Lewis have not been released. Her plea hearing is scheduled for March 9.