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The Duckpin

The System Let Pieper Lewis Down

Iowa Trafficking Victim should never have been prosecuted in the first place.

Brian Griffiths's avatar
Brian Griffiths
Sep 15, 2022
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Pieper Lewis gives her allocution during a sentencing hearing, Tuesday, Sept. 13, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. Lewis, who was initially charged with first-degree murder after she stabbed her accused rapist to death in June 2020, was sentenced to five years of closely supervised probation and ordered to pay $150,000 restitution to the man’s family. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Des Moines Register via AP)

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If you were a teenage girl, being repeatedly trafficked for sex, repeatedly raped by older men, what would you do?

For then 15-year-old Pieper Lewis, she ended the situation:

Lewis was 15 when she stab…

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