Hamstrung by state law, an Iowa judge ordered a 17-year-old victim of serial rape who killed her rapist to pay $150,000 to the family of her rapist, the Des Moines Register reports, with a GoFundMe page set up to help nearly doubling that among in a day.
Pieper Lewis pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and willful injury for stabbing to death 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, whom Lewis said raped her multiple times when she was 15-years-old. She was sentenced to five years of probation and a deferred judgment that will allow her to have her record expunged if she completes probation without issue. Also, Lewis was ordered to pay Brooks’ family $150,000, a stipulation for guilty pleas and verdicts in criminal cases where the life of another is taken put into effect in 1997.
Once the news of the payment stipulation hit the internet, wallets opened up, with a GoFundMe page set up for Lewis’s financial needs surpassing $286,000 at 9 p.m. ET Wednesday, raised from 7,142 donors. Social media campaigns boosted the story, and victim advocacy groups and rape survivors started raising money for her.