Few cases shine a light on systemic failures to protect vulnerable people in the US more than that of Pieper Lewis. The 18-year-old will face a probation violation hearing this week after walking out of a women’s residential facility and cutting off her electronic ankle tag. Her attorneys are still seeking to delay her sentencing while they seek an updated psychological evaluation to present to the judge.
Lewis’s is a sad tale of compounded abuse. She entered the foster care system as a baby and was adopted at the age of 3; she says she ran away at 15 because her home life with her adoptive parents had become volatile and abusive. She ended up being sex trafficked by a man she met while she was on the street. The man who trafficked her would ply her with alcohol and take her to meet associates, who would pay to rape her while she was either conscious or passed out. One of those men, 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, allegedly raped Lewis on multiple occasions. She says that she woke up during one such assault in 2020, grabbed the knife off Brooks’s nightstand and stabbed him to death.
