As previously reported, on September 13, 2022, Pieper Lewis, then only 17 years old, was sentenced to a deferred judgment of five years of probation after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury for the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks. Lewis was also ordered to pay restitution to Brooks’ family and complete community service. Lewis is a victim of sex trafficking and Brooks was a sex buyer who had allegedly raped her on multiple occasions.
At the time of the June 2020 killing, Pieper Lewis was a 15-year-old girl who had run away from home to escape an abusive adoptive mother. She was taken in by her alleged trafficker, Christopher Brown, who trafficked her to other men. Lewis alleged that on the night of May 31, 2020, Brown told her that she had to stay with Brooks and when she refused, he held her at knifepoint and forced her to go to Brooks’ apartment.
Lewis’s 2022 judgment was revoked in 2023 when she first violated probation. Lewis was placed on probation again but violated it a second time in March 2024, when she left a facility in Georgia. She remained missing until December 2025, until she turned herself in to authorities.
Before the judge at the parole revocation hearing on May 15, 2026, Lewis’s counsel asked that she be discharged from probation and allowed to return to Kentucky, where was receiving assistance from a local YMCA and had begun to build a support network. At the hearing, Lewis spoke about how she was finally able to live somewhat normally. Additionally, in preparation for the May hearing, Lewis’s legal team prepared a coalition letter signed by multiple people and organizations, including the CSE Institute and Rights4Girls. The letter urged the court to consider that Lewis is a survivor of child sex trafficking and prioritize trauma-informed services and support over incarceration.
Despite the prosecution only requesting 180 days incarceration, the judge imposed Lewis’s 20-year sentence. This decision reflects a broader trend in which survivors are criminalized for the crimes they are forced to commit as part of their exploitation.
One study shows that 81% of survivors were criminalized while they were trafficked, and 42% were criminalized after they were exploited. This study highlights the horrifying truth that survivors are pushed from victimization to punishment. Instead of being acknowledged as victims of coercion and control, many are treated as offenders for acts tied directly to their exploitation, which reflects systemic failures in identifying trafficking survivors and the abuse to prison pipeline. This criminalization continues after their trafficking ends, as survivors’ criminal records follow them and keep them intertwined with the criminal justice system even after their exploitation.
When survivors receive penalties instead of protections, they are revictimized by the criminal justice system and re-penalized for actions that stem from instability that occurs after their exit from “the life” or for simply surviving. Barriers that criminalized survivors face include lack of housing, employment, and support, which make reintegration difficult and can lead to continued involvement with the criminal justice system. As in Lewis’s case, survivors are punished for mistakes that are rooted in trauma, poverty, and systemic failures rather than true criminal intent.
Pieper Lewis is not an isolated case. Alexis Martin, who was convicted for killing her alleged trafficker when she was 15 years old, was sent back to prison when she violated her parole. Chrystul Kizer, who killed her abuser, spent years fighting for evidence about her abuse to be admissible at trial. These are just a few of the names we know. Across the country, survivors are punished at different stages of the criminal justice system, even when their actions are rooted in trauma. These cases highlight how the criminal justice system prioritizes procedural violations over the underlying context of trauma.
The CSE Institute is very disappointed in the Polk County judge’s decision to sentence Pieper Lewis to 20 years for violating parole. This sentence is draconian and inappropriate, especially when Lewis never should have been charged with murder or tried in adult criminal court in the first place. By ignoring her victimization, the criminal justice system has failed Pieper Lewis, the very individual that the system is meant to protect.
All views expressed herein are personal to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law or of Villanova University.