Pieper Lewis, the Iowa teenager who murdered her rapist a couple years ago, is in some seriously deep fertilizer. Escape was not a wise thing to do but she did it anyway. Once the fugitive is eventually tracked back down, major consequences will be waiting. Sometimes, though, there are issues to which you have to stand your ground. She apparently flipped the bad finger at absolute absurdity just to prove a point. She’ll have to face the inevitable music but it brings satisfaction.
Pieper Lewis on the run
Authorities from coast-to-coast are on the lookout for Pieper Lewis. The teenager got a slap on the wrist sentence along with an insulting bill for damages. GoFundMe raised the cash and then some but it’s the principle of the thing.
Her attorney can’t figure out whether he’s more furious, disappointed or proud with his client but he’s begging her to turn herself in now. Before things get any worse for her than they already are.
In September, the court sentenced her to five years’ probation. The judge was also nice enough to make it a “deferred judgment,” which means the sentence would be erased once she completed the terms of her probation.
Iowa teen Pieper Lewis, who killed her rapist, may face prison after leaving shelter https://t.co/C1xXT3c85e
— SIAdvance (@siadvance) November 7, 2022
All Ms. Lewis had to do was keep her nose clean at the Fresh Start Women’s Center in Des Moines. She was “free to come and go from the center to work.” One day she went and didn’t come back.
At 6:19 a.m. on November 4, one of those alarms went off like a shoplifter boosting something past the detectors in the grocery store. That was Lewis informally checking out of the detention center. She hacked off her GPS tracker and headed for the hills.
“A residential officer saw her leaving the facility. This is the last anyone has seen of her.” She really shouldn’t have done that.
Puts her in jeopardy
The jeopardy answer of the day is “decades in prison and a convicted felon for the rest of her life.” The question, for $500,000, is “what’s the consequences for chopping off your ankle bracelet and escaping?” Drake University law professor Robert Rigg explains it’s a much bigger deal than it seems. “The fact that she left and cut off the GPS tracker really puts her in jeopardy.”
Lewis will also “be losing that deferment, which means she’ll be a convicted felon for the rest of her life.” It could also “cost her decades in prison because she originally faced voluntary manslaughter and willful injury charges.”
“Bottom line is, now she’s exposed herself to potential criminal liability of 10 years’ incarceration on each count.” Times two. Polk County Attorney John Sarcone is all set to throw the book at her.
“Police are looking for Pieper Lewis right now. Once she’s apprehended she will be taken to jail and a probation revocation hearing will be set. At that time there will be a hearing to determine what the judge will do based on the violations that are proved.”
Her own lawyer is smart enough not to be saying a word but according to Rigg, Lewis should go directly to the nearest jail, do not pass go. “If she were my client, I would advise her to come in and let’s go down and let’s turn yourself in to the court. We do that directly and then we would be able to offer any explanation we would want to offer.”
No matter what, there will still be that $150,000 thousand dollars in restitution. It’s mandatory under state law and the judge couldn’t make it go away. The $500,000 that piled up in her GoFundMe account “is frozen. None of it has been used to make restitution payments.“
