A teenager has been ordered to pay money to the family of a man she killed - after she says he raped her.
Pieper Lewis, 17, was charged with stabbing to death Zachary Brooks, 37, when she was 15-years-old.
The bloody incident happened during the early hours of June 1, 2020, in an apartment in Des Moines, Iowa, US.
Last year, Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and wilful injury in the killing - having been held in Polk County Juvenile Detention Center for the past two years.
On Tuesday, Judge David M. Porter of the Polk County District Court, sentenced Lewis to five years of probation without early release.
The judge deferred her sentence, meaning Lewis could face up to 20 years in prison if she violates her probation.
She was also ordered to be placed in a residential facility called Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines where Lewis must wear a GPS tracking device.
The judge said she was tagged out of concern that she might fall “back into the lifestyle that you thus far left.”
Lewis was also ordered to carry out 200 hours of community service each year for three years.
On top of this, the judge said she must pay $150,000 in restitution to the Brooks' family.
When making reference to the controversial payment he added that the court was “presented with no other option,” under Iowa state law.
At the sentencing Matthew S. Sheeley, an assistant state public defender and one of Lewis’s lawyers, suggested that the reason she stabbed Brooks 30 times was because "she was put in a human trafficking situation".
Lewis said she regretted taking a person's life and accepted she had committed a crime.
She told the judge before her sentencing that she did not have intentions on the day of the killing to take someone's life.
Lewis added: "In my mind I felt that I wasn't safe and I felt that I was in danger, which resulted in the acts.
"But it doesn't take away from the fact that a crime was committed."
However, she called the idea that there was only one victim in this case "absurd".
As part of a plea agreement, Lewis said in a witness statement that in 2020 she ran away from home three times before being taken in by a man called Christopher Brown.
Brown allegedly signed her up to sex dating sites and arranged for men to pay for sex with her, including Brooks.
She said on June 1 she woke up to Brooks raping her and lost conscious after asking him to stop.
Later on, she said she found Brooks "passed out" on the bed and that "without thinking, I immediately grabbed the knife from his night stand and began stabbing him."
While the police and prosecutors did not dispute Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked the prosecution argued that Brooks was not an immediate threat at the time of his death as he was asleep.
The convicted teenager said while on the stand in court: "Nothing can stop a positive path of progress but negativity and doubt.
"During my journey, I have found part of the spiritual world and its beauty.
She finished by saying: "I am a survivor".
