Latest / Crime Stories with Nancy Grace / Teen Sex Trafficking Victim Ordered to Pay $150,000 to Rapist's Family?

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Teen Sex Trafficking Victim Ordered to Pay $150,000 to Rapist's Family? · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:05
Speaker 1: Crime Stories with Nancy Greece. Let me understand this eighteen
0:16
Speaker 1: sex trafficking victim is ordered to pay one hundred and
0:21
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars to the rapist she stabbed dead. Let
0:29
Speaker 1: me just say that one more time. A teen girl
0:34
Speaker 1: is a rape victim, a victim of sex trafficking, and
0:39
Speaker 1: she's been ordered by a court to pay a hundred
0:42
Speaker 1: and fifty grand to the alleged rapist that raped her
0:49
Speaker 1: family after she stabbed him. Wait, Jackie, don't have that right. Okay,
0:54
Speaker 1: I've got it right. It's not me, it's the judge.
0:58
Speaker 1: I Meanancy Grace. This his Crime Stories. Thank you for
1:01
Speaker 1: being with us here at Fox Nation in series XM
1:04
Speaker 1: one eleven. That sounds pretty bass ackwards to me. I
1:08
Speaker 1: got an all star panel makes sense of what this
1:11
Speaker 1: judge did in his wisdom. But first take a listen
1:15
Speaker 1: to our friends at WOA five Des Moines, OH. A
1:19
Speaker 1: fifteen year old female has been charged with murder after
1:22
Speaker 1: a body was found in a De Moine apartment on Monday.
1:25
Speaker 1: Please responded to investigate a possible suicide in Evergreen Avenue,
1:29
Speaker 1: but then, after looking at the body of thirty seven
1:31
Speaker 1: year old Zachary Brooks. They determined the manner of death
1:34
Speaker 1: did not appear to be that of a suicide. The
1:36
Speaker 1: fifteen year old female to Win resident has been arrested
1:39
Speaker 1: and charged with murder in the first degree. This case
1:42
Speaker 1: is still under investigation. Okay, look, I don't know all
1:45
Speaker 1: the facts yet, but just at first blush. If somebody
1:49
Speaker 1: handed me this file, my first question would be what
1:52
Speaker 1: is a nearly forty year old man doing in an
1:56
Speaker 1: apartment with a fifteen year old girl without her parents
2:01
Speaker 1: or guardians knowing she's there? What could possibly be going on?
2:06
Speaker 1: Let's see, was he engaging her in polite conversation? Was
2:11
Speaker 1: testing her nods on science or art or the theater?
2:16
Speaker 1: What do you think was going on with a thirty
2:19
Speaker 1: seven year old man and a fifteen year old girl? Again,
2:30
Speaker 1: I Mancy Grace, and this is Crime Stories. Thanks for
2:32
Speaker 1: being with us. I won't even hear one more thing
2:35
Speaker 1: before we really get started. Take a listen to our
2:39
Speaker 1: friends at NBC. A teenager, the alleged victim of unspeakable
2:44
Speaker 1: crimes of human trafficking and rape after fatally stabbing her
2:47
Speaker 1: alleged rapist, will stay out of prison, but a court
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Speaker 1: ruling Piper Lewis must pay one hundred and fifty thousand
2:54
Speaker 1: dollars to the family of the man who raped her.
2:57
Speaker 1: Even said took place on the horrific day cannot be
2:59
Speaker 1: changed as much as I wish they could. And more
3:03
Speaker 1: from NBC listen. She says he raped her multiple times
3:07
Speaker 1: in the weeks before his death. Yea, I wish the
3:09
Speaker 1: event said to the place on June twenty never occurred,
3:13
Speaker 1: But say there's only one victim to the story, it's absurd.
3:17
Speaker 1: Her charge is punishable by up to ten years each
3:19
Speaker 1: in prison. I'm having a hard time trying to understand
3:24
Speaker 1: why this teen girl fifteen at the time, is being
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Speaker 1: forced to pay a one hundred and fifty thousand dollars
3:32
Speaker 1: to the family of her rapist that she killed. Joining
3:39
Speaker 1: me an all star panels I mentioned before, But first
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Speaker 1: I want to go to Philip Jones, breaking news reporter
3:44
Speaker 1: in des Moine. You can find him at des Moines
3:48
Speaker 1: registered dot com. Philip. That doesn't sound right, And you
3:54
Speaker 1: know I've got to saying every time I would train
3:56
Speaker 1: a new trial lawyer, or work with a new investigator
3:59
Speaker 1: or anybody in the media, if it doesn't feel right,
4:04
Speaker 1: it's probably not right. And we are, as prosecutors, are
4:10
Speaker 1: not paid to do the popular thing or the easy thing.
4:15
Speaker 1: We were paid to do the right thing. What happened,
4:22
Speaker 1: Philip Jones. So let's back up to the night at
4:25
Speaker 1: May thirty first, Okay, thirty one, gotcha. So, for people
4:30
Speaker 1: who don't know, De Moine is a city of about
4:32
Speaker 1: two hundred and twelve thousand people, it's i was biggest city.
4:35
Speaker 1: And that was a night that the city. It was
4:39
Speaker 1: the second or third straight night the city was undergoing
4:42
Speaker 1: some pretty tumultuous protests protesting George Floyd's death. And so
4:48
Speaker 1: in the background of that, this teenage girl was being
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Speaker 1: trafficked by a twenty eight year old man who she
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Speaker 1: had started living with, Christop for Brown. Our publication is
5:01
Speaker 1: not naming him because he has not been charged with
5:04
Speaker 1: a crime. Okay, but you didn't say no. Okay, go ahead.
5:07
Speaker 1: I cannot use his name because our publication is not.
5:11
Speaker 1: But so this twenty eight year old man, he was
5:13
Speaker 1: a very small time musician. Piper had run away from
5:17
Speaker 1: home three times between January and March of twenty twenty,
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Speaker 1: from her home with her parents or a foster home.
5:24
Speaker 1: Her home with her parents. She was adopted on a
5:27
Speaker 1: foster carrit Age three, but Piper claimed that her mother
5:32
Speaker 1: was very verbally abusive. I'm with you so far. She
5:35
Speaker 1: ran away, and then what happened? She ran away, She
5:40
Speaker 1: fell into this up and complex. She lived with a
5:45
Speaker 1: with a person who was a sister of her classmates,
5:48
Speaker 1: had a disagreements, basically moved out a minute a minute,
5:53
Speaker 1: so far, I agree with everything you're saying. Phil Jones
5:56
Speaker 1: joining from the Des Moines Register, But I just want
5:59
Speaker 1: to wait just a moment. This girl has just turned fifteen.
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Speaker 1: She ran away from home. She was in a home
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Speaker 1: she'd been placed in, out of foster care. Doctor Carolyn
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Speaker 1: West joining me, Professor Clinical Psychology, University Washington, Tacoma, Award
6:17
Speaker 1: winning author That's not Easy of violence in the lives
6:22
Speaker 1: of Black women, bartered Black and Blue. Just think about it.
6:30
Speaker 1: She's also a filmmaker. Let me tell you all about
6:33
Speaker 1: black chicks, images of black women in pornography, Doctor Caroline
6:38
Speaker 1: West dot com. I want you to take a listen
6:41
Speaker 1: to our friends at NBC News listen. Officials say she
6:47
Speaker 1: was a runaway seeking to escape an abusive foster home.
6:50
Speaker 1: Piper setting court that a man took her in before
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Speaker 1: forcibly trafficking her to other men for sex. She testified
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Speaker 1: that one of those men was Brooks, who repeatedly raped
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Speaker 1: her at knife point. Police and prosecutors have not disputed
7:03
Speaker 1: Lewis was assaulted in trafficked, but they have argued that
7:06
Speaker 1: Brooks was asleep at the time he was stabbed and
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Speaker 1: not an immediate threat. Okay, so let me understand this
7:12
Speaker 1: hold on, doctor Caroline West. Philip Jones at DesMoines Register
7:16
Speaker 1: dot com. Cops are not disagreeing that the teen girl
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Speaker 1: Piper was assaulted and sex trafficked. They're just saying Brooks
7:30
Speaker 1: was asleep at the time he was stabbed. Do I
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Speaker 1: have that right? Right? You know what you just did
7:35
Speaker 1: something no lawyer I have ever met has been able
7:38
Speaker 1: to do. You should consider law school if you weren't
7:40
Speaker 1: such a great investigative reporter. You answered in one word,
7:43
Speaker 1: I've never ever in my life seeing a lawyer do that. Okay,
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Speaker 1: back to you, Doctor Caroline West, joining US Professor clinical Psychology,
7:52
Speaker 1: University of Washington, Dacoma, author, filmmaker. Her resume is her
7:57
Speaker 1: CV is two pages long. Doctor West. We've got a
8:01
Speaker 1: teen girl who ran away from foster care. She then
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Speaker 1: goes to a friend of her sisters, They have an argument,
8:11
Speaker 1: she runs away. Are you surprised she fell in with
8:16
Speaker 1: a trafficker? Why does nobody believe sex trafficking of young
8:20
Speaker 1: girls is happening right under our noses? Well, she had
8:24
Speaker 1: all the vulnerability. She was coming from a difficult home background.
8:29
Speaker 1: She ran away to escape that. She was facing homelessness, poverty,
8:34
Speaker 1: she had no place to stay. So perpetrators pick up
8:39
Speaker 1: on those vulnerabilities, they do, doctor, they do. They pick
8:45
Speaker 1: out particular victims. You think they're gonna pick on the
8:49
Speaker 1: rich kid whose parents went to Harvard and they're going
8:52
Speaker 1: to a private high school. No, because those kids would
8:58
Speaker 1: know what to do, or some of them would. Anyway,
9:03
Speaker 1: it's somebody vulnerable that doesn't have anywhere to go, it
9:06
Speaker 1: has no support, that's afraid, that's kind of out there
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Speaker 1: without a home. That's who they target, doctor West. So
9:14
Speaker 1: she was vulnerable, and she had all the things that
9:17
Speaker 1: we see with neural biology of trauma where she's just fighting. Okay, say,
9:23
Speaker 1: we don't know what you just said, So you're gonna
9:25
Speaker 1: have to break that down for us people that are
9:27
Speaker 1: just regular old jds. What did you say, nero by
9:31
Speaker 1: what the neural biology of trauma she was in. She
9:33
Speaker 1: was a traumatized child in a very vulnerable situation. So
9:38
Speaker 1: even though this guy appeared to be sleeping, she was
9:43
Speaker 1: definitely fearful, and she used violence really in what she
9:47
Speaker 1: perceived probably to be self defend. Yeah, who wants to
9:50
Speaker 1: be raped by a stranger? One more time? Time stories
10:07
Speaker 1: with Nancy Greece. Guys, we're trying to make sense of
10:14
Speaker 1: what we know right now. But I've just been joined
10:16
Speaker 1: by Kathleen Murphy, family attorney. She deals with domestic law,
10:24
Speaker 1: or is its euphemistically recalled family law. Kathleen Murphy, this
10:31
Speaker 1: girl the cops. I'm just gonna take it as a
10:33
Speaker 1: given because the cops agree this teen girl fifteen has
10:37
Speaker 1: already been raped in sex traffic? How many men has
10:40
Speaker 1: she been forced to sleep with? At age fifteen? I remember, Okay,
10:45
Speaker 1: don't life, Kathleen. Because I think I was either thirteen
10:48
Speaker 1: or fourteen. My front store neighbor Joy told me what
10:53
Speaker 1: a period and what sex was. I'm like, no way.
10:56
Speaker 1: I joked on my bike and rode off. I'm either
10:58
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen. I knew nothing. I thought it was
11:01
Speaker 1: a joke. I thought it was hilarious, or actually I
11:05
Speaker 1: thought it was kind of freaky and creepy. That's what
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Speaker 1: I thought, and took off on my bike. I remember
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Speaker 1: the moment clearly. We were right in the middle of
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Speaker 1: Bevin Drive and here's this girl. It's fifteen and she's
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Speaker 1: already been sex traffic and what that means is rape
11:18
Speaker 1: at age fifteen. Every time she's pimped out, she's being raped. Yeah,
11:24
Speaker 1: I'd stab whoever to get out of that apartment. Amen, Nancy, Amen.
11:27
Speaker 1: And I see children all the time in the court
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Speaker 1: systems and my heart just breaks for them because they're
11:34
Speaker 1: facing these adult issues that they are just not competent
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Speaker 1: to be able to handle. And then on top of
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Speaker 1: that the trauma, the poverty, you're being sexually assaulted. I
11:48
Speaker 1: would ask, why wouldn't she do it when he was asleep? Bravo, bravo, bravo. Yeah,
11:54
Speaker 1: I don't think you and I aren't going to win
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Speaker 1: any awards for agreeing with the so called murderer. Hey
11:59
Speaker 1: join me right now. In addition to Kathleen Murphy, Philip Jones,
12:03
Speaker 1: and doctor Carolyn west Is, just Scott Morgan, forensics expert,
12:08
Speaker 1: and Greg Sheffer. Now listen to Sheffer, former Phoenix Police
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Speaker 1: Department detective twenty two years specialty child sexploitation in crimes
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Speaker 1: on children. He is investigator with Hope for Justice, which
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Speaker 1: is an international human trafficking organization. Wow, let's just say
12:30
Speaker 1: that at the get go. But Greg Sheffer, Okay, can
12:33
Speaker 1: we just talk about even if what police are saying
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Speaker 1: is true that she stabbed her rapist in his sleep,
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Speaker 1: and they are saying that she was raped and trafficked,
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Speaker 1: they are giving me that's a given. We don't have
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Speaker 1: to say, well, that's what she says, that's what the
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Speaker 1: cops say, the ones that charged her with homicide. Did
13:00
Speaker 1: you tell the people that are listening and watching right
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Speaker 1: now what happens to teen girls when they are sex trafficked,
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Speaker 1: the life that they lead up to twenty to thirty
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Speaker 1: sex partners. And I'm saying that in quoties a day.
13:18
Speaker 1: Moving from well, there's not a nice way to put
13:22
Speaker 1: it that the FCC wouldn't like very much. Let's just say,
13:27
Speaker 1: flop house to flop house, man after man after man,
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Speaker 1: vaginal sex, anal sex, oral sex, you name it, fifteen
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Speaker 1: years old and then the pimp very often will get
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Speaker 1: them on drugs until they're this big, you know, eighty
13:47
Speaker 1: nine pounds, and they finally just die or kill them.
13:49
Speaker 1: You tell it. Well, basically, these girls, they are not
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Speaker 1: even not just girls, but boys and girls. They live
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Speaker 1: with that trauma obviously for the rest of their life.
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Speaker 1: So anybody that deals with trauma knows that it affects
14:03
Speaker 1: every aspect of their life. So from that point forward,
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Speaker 1: whatever trauma they have, if it's not processed properly or
14:11
Speaker 1: dealt with ree therapy or a process, you know, it's
14:13
Speaker 1: like a ticking time bomb where one day it all
14:17
Speaker 1: comes to a head and it ruined. It can ruin
14:20
Speaker 1: a life, obviously, the trauma does. And this type of
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Speaker 1: sex trafficking it knows no colors, it knows no races,
14:29
Speaker 1: it knows no class system. It goes across the board.
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Speaker 1: You know, I've seen really rich girls get pulled into
14:35
Speaker 1: sex trafficking. And then when girls that are doing survival
14:39
Speaker 1: sex and they get pulled into sex trafficking, what's survival sex.
14:43
Speaker 1: I've never heard of that. That's basically your runaways, that
14:46
Speaker 1: they're out there on the street. You know, I don't
14:49
Speaker 1: know what the current statistics are, but usually within three
14:52
Speaker 1: days they say that someone on the street is going
14:54
Speaker 1: to resort to a survival sex mode just to survive,
14:58
Speaker 1: and so a runaway out on the street doing that,
15:01
Speaker 1: they're going to get pulled into that type of lifestyle.
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Speaker 1: And sex traffickers are very good at identifying vulnerable girls
15:11
Speaker 1: and boys, and whether they're rich or poor, they can
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Speaker 1: identify a weakness or a vulnerability in that girl, exploit
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Speaker 1: it and pull them into into the sex trafficking lifestyle.
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Speaker 1: Speaking of Greg Shefferd joining us from Hope for Justice
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Speaker 1: International human tracking organization, Greg, just give me a day
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Speaker 1: in the life of a teen girl sex trafficking victim. Well,
15:35
Speaker 1: the girls I spoke to you know, like I said,
15:37
Speaker 1: they come from all walks of life, and you have
15:39
Speaker 1: different sex traffickers out there. You have ones that try
15:44
Speaker 1: to seduce them and play the boyfriend role, and then
15:46
Speaker 1: you have the very violent ones that force them into
15:48
Speaker 1: the life. And so once they're in the life, generally,
15:52
Speaker 1: if they're working like on the street, they're going to
15:55
Speaker 1: be required to work on the street. They're going to
15:57
Speaker 1: require to get a certain amount of money day. And
16:01
Speaker 1: in my background, most of the girls had to make
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Speaker 1: a thousand dollars a day and they couldn't come back
16:05
Speaker 1: until they did. They worked three hundred and sixty five
16:08
Speaker 1: days a year. There's no you know, you don't get
16:10
Speaker 1: any breaks. And if they're lucky, they get a decent
16:15
Speaker 1: place to stay, but generally they just use the customers
16:19
Speaker 1: to stay in hotel rooms where they're doing work. They'll
16:21
Speaker 1: just take the room from the customer or the john's
16:26
Speaker 1: and that's their life, and that's a day to day thing,
16:28
Speaker 1: and they never see any of that money. It goes
16:31
Speaker 1: to the traffickers. And then you know, down the road,
16:36
Speaker 1: they might end up having a child there and then
16:38
Speaker 1: that child gets held sort of ransom against them, or
16:42
Speaker 1: it gets placed into family and they never even get
16:44
Speaker 1: to see their children. So the subculture of prostitution and
16:48
Speaker 1: sex craft trafficking, it's it's a it's a fascinating thing
16:54
Speaker 1: to study, but it's a horrible life. And when you
16:56
Speaker 1: talk to them, the trauma, the pain that you see
17:01
Speaker 1: is enormous. And again that's why I do this job now,
17:05
Speaker 1: because I want to try to help those victims. That's
17:07
Speaker 1: why I gravitated that as a cop. I will never
17:10
Speaker 1: forget Greg the first sex trafficking case I prosecuted, the
17:16
Speaker 1: girl was thirteen, and we worked so hard to put
17:21
Speaker 1: this case together. And I worked a street for Oh
17:26
Speaker 1: My Stars over a month along with some vice cops
17:30
Speaker 1: to try and find a girl because the girl vanished.
17:33
Speaker 1: And I remember one day I was in what I
17:36
Speaker 1: was in the courthouse, and I got a call it
17:38
Speaker 1: we think we think we spotted her. Go out. It
17:41
Speaker 1: was freezing cold. I jumped in a county car, which
17:45
Speaker 1: of course you can spot a mile away. It's a
17:48
Speaker 1: big like a Continental, something like that old county issue. Anyway,
17:57
Speaker 1: we get over there. I go in the room where
18:01
Speaker 1: she's about to turn fourteen. Girl was I went in
18:04
Speaker 1: or a bunch of women in there, like you're saying,
18:05
Speaker 1: they're all in one hotel room. I looked around, I
18:09
Speaker 1: come and out, she's not a girl in there, and
18:11
Speaker 1: they went, yes, she's a one in the white stack boots.
18:15
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, went back in there and looked at her.
18:19
Speaker 1: By the time we got the weave off her head
18:24
Speaker 1: and all the nooke up and the push up bra
18:29
Speaker 1: and put her in regular clothes, she was like a
18:32
Speaker 1: twelve year old girl the way they had her made
18:37
Speaker 1: up at first, And I knew what the girl looked
18:41
Speaker 1: like I couldn't even identify her, Doctor Carolyn West, oh
18:46
Speaker 1: at ps. By the time we got to trial, she
18:50
Speaker 1: was so scared she ran away again. I was up
18:52
Speaker 1: till five o'clock in the morning trying to find her,
18:54
Speaker 1: looking at all her hangouts at HIGHI holes till we
18:58
Speaker 1: found her and they were both convicted. By the way,
19:01
Speaker 1: But doctor Carola West, what does that do to a girl?
19:06
Speaker 1: Are you surprised she stabbed the guy? No, I'm not
19:10
Speaker 1: surprised at all. I mean, these girls are, oftentimes and
19:13
Speaker 1: young men too, are oftentimes very traumatized because, as your
19:18
Speaker 1: guests said, they've been exposed to all types of trauma.
19:22
Speaker 1: We have to understand that they're not perpetrators. They really
19:25
Speaker 1: are victims. Under federal and state law, anyone under the
19:29
Speaker 1: age of eighteen who commits a commercial sex act is
19:33
Speaker 1: a trafficking victim. Piper, the young girl in this story
19:38
Speaker 1: really should not have been charged. She should have been
19:41
Speaker 1: given services. So the whole system failed her. Well, I
19:45
Speaker 1: gotta tell you to you, Cassa Murphy. You know it'll
19:50
Speaker 1: be a cold a and hblel. I'll let somebody give
19:53
Speaker 1: me a sob story about why they committed murder. Boo
19:55
Speaker 1: who the victims still dab but not in this case.
19:59
Speaker 1: This young Did you know this girl is about the
20:03
Speaker 1: same age of my twins, Lucy, this girl is the
20:07
Speaker 1: same age as my son. And when you're when Greg
20:10
Speaker 1: was talking about boys being trafficed, I just lost it.
20:14
Speaker 1: I just lost it to imagine I have three girls
20:17
Speaker 1: as well. Your son getting rape fifteen twenty times a day,
20:20
Speaker 1: your daughter, your son, Oh it is it is. Bravo,
20:25
Speaker 1: bravo to this young lady for sitting up. You know
20:27
Speaker 1: you're gonna get me in a whole heap of trouble
20:29
Speaker 1: if you keep saying bravo to the killer. Okay, I
20:32
Speaker 1: know that said. Well you know what, I don't know either,
20:35
Speaker 1: because I think this is wrong. I think this is wrong. Guys,
20:38
Speaker 1: I want you to take a listen to our cut two.
20:41
Speaker 1: This is Brian Tabeggi k c RG nine. This is
20:44
Speaker 1: an unusual case. Sarah Riley, as cedar raps attorney, also
20:48
Speaker 1: questions whether the county attorney should have brought charges against
20:51
Speaker 1: the then fifteen year old who described being repeatedly raped
20:55
Speaker 1: by the man she killed and sex trafficed by another man.
20:58
Speaker 1: I was surprised to journed to the situation, I would
21:01
Speaker 1: not have brought charges, but ultimately that decision lies with
21:09
Speaker 1: the county attorney, and I want you to hear claims
21:14
Speaker 1: made by the girl, Piper Lewis. Take a listen to
21:19
Speaker 1: the CEO of Chains interrupted Teresa Davidson speaking to our
21:24
Speaker 1: forensic casey RG. Piper Lewis was arrested, prosecuted, and detained
21:30
Speaker 1: for over two years, while her trafficker is free to
21:34
Speaker 1: this day. And the people that bought her, she mentioned
21:38
Speaker 1: multiple people buying her during that time, they're free to
21:41
Speaker 1: this day. Kind of message does that send to people
21:44
Speaker 1: who've been exploited and abused and trafficked To Philip Jones,
21:49
Speaker 1: breaking these reporter des moines register buying her, it sounds
21:54
Speaker 1: like modern day slavery. Yeah, this case, you know, to
21:59
Speaker 1: your point, hit with a lot of people in Iowa.
22:01
Speaker 1: You know they were. The county attorney told one of
22:04
Speaker 1: my colleagues his name is John Sarcone, that you know,
22:08
Speaker 1: this case where's satisfying resolution because they saw the side. Um.
22:13
Speaker 1: You know, when I spoke with Piper's attorneys throughout the
22:15
Speaker 1: process of reporting this story over the last two years,
22:19
Speaker 1: you know they repeatedly told me that they thought the
22:22
Speaker 1: police department detectives were blind to the fact that another
22:25
Speaker 1: crime occurred, you know, that they were focused on stabbing,
22:30
Speaker 1: the unsolving the stabbing. You know this, this was a
22:33
Speaker 1: very violent crime. I should state this. You know she
22:36
Speaker 1: stabbed Go ahead, mister Brooks about over thirty times. For
22:41
Speaker 1: any of those in the KA I'm just curious. No,
22:44
Speaker 1: I don't know. She said in the police agreement that
22:48
Speaker 1: she stabbed him in the arms, legs and growing with
22:51
Speaker 1: the intent to injure and then it ended killing him.
22:55
Speaker 1: You know. But but this case really did hit a
22:57
Speaker 1: nerve with a lot of people here and and nationally
23:00
Speaker 1: to your point two, um, because they've been frustrated by
23:05
Speaker 1: this decision to to not only charge her. Who is
23:08
Speaker 1: the judge that did this? So it's a it's a
23:11
Speaker 1: district court judge. His name is David M. Porter. David
23:17
Speaker 1: M as a mother Porter. H Uh huh did you
23:20
Speaker 1: say district court judge? Right? Okay, go ahead? Uh? Well,
23:25
Speaker 1: And so so if if you're not for for your
23:28
Speaker 1: listeners who don't know the law here in Iowa, um,
23:32
Speaker 1: in Iowa, any person convicted of a felony um in
23:37
Speaker 1: which a person dies in this case, Piper pled guilty
23:40
Speaker 1: to voluntary manslaughter and will full injury so that she
23:44
Speaker 1: could play down from first degree murder. Uh. You know,
23:47
Speaker 1: I will back up and say that originally, because she
23:50
Speaker 1: was only fifteen when this happened, she was her case
23:53
Speaker 1: was was not automatically moved to adult court, but it
23:56
Speaker 1: was waived to adult court eventually. Uh. And so she
23:59
Speaker 1: faced charge of first degree murderer. So she pled down
24:03
Speaker 1: and got what a voluntary Yeah, pleaded guilty to voluntary
24:06
Speaker 1: manslaughter and bullfal injury. That was the compromise, reach for
24:09
Speaker 1: a plea agreement. Okay, hold on, So she pleads guilty,
24:13
Speaker 1: and this is the judge that ordered her to pay
24:15
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty thousand dollars investitution to her rapist family.
24:19
Speaker 1: Is that right? That's what I want to know right now? Right? Yeah? Second,
24:22
Speaker 1: I want to figure something else out. Philip Jones joining
24:25
Speaker 1: me from the Des Moines Register. Joe Scott Morgan, Professor forensics,
24:29
Speaker 1: Jacksonville State University and author of Blood Beneath My Feet
24:33
Speaker 1: on Amazon, star of a Hitney series on iHeart and Beyond,
24:37
Speaker 1: Body Bags That Joe Scott Morgan, Joe Scott, thank you
24:40
Speaker 1: for being with us. Let me ask you something they
24:43
Speaker 1: are saying, as a given that this teen girl just
24:48
Speaker 1: turned fifteen was raped and sex trafficked, how would we
24:53
Speaker 1: be able to prove that forensically? If she said that
24:58
Speaker 1: she had been rate just prior to the stabbing, could
25:06
Speaker 1: we approve that forensically? Yeah? Absolutely, at this age and
25:10
Speaker 1: particularly with this ongoing abuse fancy that she was suffering,
25:13
Speaker 1: there would be obvious signs of sexual trauma. And I'm
25:17
Speaker 1: talking about kind of a physical manifestation with her um
25:21
Speaker 1: and you know, we we can dive into those details
25:24
Speaker 1: if you wish, but there they're resport. Yeah, of course
25:27
Speaker 1: I want the details. Well, obviously a rape exam would
25:32
Speaker 1: have to be performed, uh there at a local hospital.
25:36
Speaker 1: They would do a rape kit, just you know, like
25:39
Speaker 1: we do in other cases as sutual assault and certainly
25:42
Speaker 1: sexualated homicide. There would be uh you know, a kit
25:46
Speaker 1: that was that was that was deployed at at the hospital.
25:52
Speaker 1: Hopefully there would be what's called the same nurse which
25:55
Speaker 1: is a sexual assault nurse examiner there that is specialized
25:59
Speaker 1: in this area that would do the examination and document
26:03
Speaker 1: it and all of these all of these items would
26:06
Speaker 1: be collected and submitted for testing. Now, we've got a
26:10
Speaker 1: real problem in this country with with rape kids that
26:13
Speaker 1: are not being processed. I hope in this case that
26:15
Speaker 1: they would have done that. But you know, there was
26:17
Speaker 1: something that the reporter said just a moment ago that
26:21
Speaker 1: kind of troubled me relative to this case. Go ahead,
26:26
Speaker 1: Well specifically no, and I'm not. What I'm saying is
26:31
Speaker 1: is that he made a profound statement and that the
26:35
Speaker 1: police were looking at this as a as a one
26:39
Speaker 1: off crime. You're simply dealing with a homicide and not
26:43
Speaker 1: dealing with a sexual assault. So with that, one of
26:46
Speaker 1: the biggest problems we faced in forensics is timeliness. That is,
26:50
Speaker 1: getting to do the examination as quickly as you possibly can.
26:54
Speaker 1: I think that somebody's feet needs to be healthy the fire.
26:57
Speaker 1: Relative to this, did they take the show growing in
27:00
Speaker 1: they have her apperpectly examined and then when that happened,
27:04
Speaker 1: did they appropriately collect the evidence and submitted to the
27:07
Speaker 1: state crime lay. Guys, we're talking to Joe Scott Morgan,
27:10
Speaker 1: Professor forensics about fifteen year old young girl that cops
27:17
Speaker 1: admit was forcibly traffic to other men for sex by
27:23
Speaker 1: her then homicide victim. Their problem is not all the sex,
27:28
Speaker 1: traffic and the raping of a team girl over and
27:31
Speaker 1: over and over every single day, but the fact that
27:34
Speaker 1: she finally hauled off and stabbed him. Guys, take a
27:37
Speaker 1: listen now to your friends at WOI Local Fine. Seventeen
27:40
Speaker 1: year old Piper Lewis entered court shackled in wearing a
27:43
Speaker 1: blue jumpsuit. Her attorney's requested she'd be allowed to wear
27:46
Speaker 1: street clothes, but that request denied by the judge. Her
27:49
Speaker 1: team called six witnesses to the standard testify about Lewis's actions,
27:53
Speaker 1: what led up to her stabbing the alleged rapist In
27:55
Speaker 1: how She's doing now? A doctor described her as someone
27:58
Speaker 1: who has depression, anxiety and had a bad childhood and
28:02
Speaker 1: says for her to recover, she needs to do whatever
28:04
Speaker 1: time she gets in a foster homelike environment. What do
28:08
Speaker 1: we know about this girl, Piper Lewis Listen to our
28:14
Speaker 1: friends at crime online dot com. Piper Lewis was just
28:17
Speaker 1: three years old when she was adopted out of foster
28:20
Speaker 1: care by Billie and Leslie Lewis. A divorce split the
28:23
Speaker 1: family when Piper was in eighth grade. Lewis says that's
28:27
Speaker 1: when her mother became mentally and emotionally abusive. With tensions
28:31
Speaker 1: high at home, Lewis ran away three times. The second
28:35
Speaker 1: time she ran away, she reported being sexually assaulted at
28:39
Speaker 1: the Youth Emergency Services and Shelter facility in Des Moines.
28:42
Speaker 1: The third time she ran away reportedly came after her
28:45
Speaker 1: mother accused her of being promiscuous. Fifteen year old Lewis
28:49
Speaker 1: went to live with an older sister of a classmate,
28:52
Speaker 1: but moved out after an argument. Sleeping in the hallways,
28:55
Speaker 1: a forty year old man in the complex took Lewis in.
28:59
Speaker 1: What more do we know? The forty year old man
29:01
Speaker 1: who took Piper Lewis in reportedly beat her, gave her cocaine,
29:05
Speaker 1: and tried to make her have sex with his cousins.
29:07
Speaker 1: Lewis went back to sleeping in the hallways. That's when
29:11
Speaker 1: she met and moved in with the twenty eight year
29:13
Speaker 1: old musician Christopher Brown. Lewis says while she considered Brown
29:17
Speaker 1: to be her boyfriend, he signed her up for dating sites,
29:20
Speaker 1: then arranged for her to have sex with men for
29:22
Speaker 1: money at least seven or eight times. Through the musician,
29:25
Speaker 1: Lewis met another man, Zach Brooks, at a house party,
29:29
Speaker 1: Brown told Louis that she had to stay with Brooks
29:32
Speaker 1: while Brown's daughter and her mother visited. Lewis says Brooks
29:36
Speaker 1: gave her alcohol and marijuana and over the weekend had
29:40
Speaker 1: sex with her five times while she was unconscious and
29:43
Speaker 1: guess what that's not all listen. The day before Zach
29:46
Speaker 1: Brooks died, Lewis was forced to return to Brookes's apartment.
29:50
Speaker 1: Lewis says she was threatened to buy Brown at knife point.
29:54
Speaker 1: Brooks picked Lewis up at the musician's apartment at ten
29:56
Speaker 1: pm and reportedly planned to give Brown fifty dollars worth
29:59
Speaker 1: of marijuana in exchange for sex acts at the apartment.
30:03
Speaker 1: According to Lewis's statement, Brooks ordered Louis to take off
30:06
Speaker 1: her clothes and, along with two other people at the apartment,
30:10
Speaker 1: pressured her into drinking vodka and smoking marijuana. Louis fell asleep.
30:15
Speaker 1: When she woke up, she says Brooks was raping her.
30:18
Speaker 1: Louis screamed but couldn't stop him. As Brooks slept, Louis
30:22
Speaker 1: gathered her clothes and saw a knife on the nightstand
30:25
Speaker 1: and was overcome with rage after realizing she had been
30:28
Speaker 1: raped again. Louis stabbed Brooks and left the apartment, returning
30:32
Speaker 1: to her musician friends home time stories with Nancy Grace
30:51
Speaker 1: to Philip Jones joining US investigative news reporter and des
30:55
Speaker 1: Moines with a des Moines Register Philip Jones or any
31:00
Speaker 1: of those facts and dispute. No, no, Prosecutors and police
31:06
Speaker 1: detectives really never disputed the claims of sex trafficking. But
31:12
Speaker 1: despite that, the musician was never interviewed again by police detectives,
31:16
Speaker 1: even once it became apparent that Piper was a victim
31:19
Speaker 1: of sex trafficking. You know, up until the sentencing hearings
31:25
Speaker 1: that happened in the past couple of weeks, prosecutors ineveraly
31:27
Speaker 1: affirmed the fact that she was a victim of sex trafficking,
31:31
Speaker 1: But they did it. And then during those hearings they
31:34
Speaker 1: actually did confirm that she was a victim of sex trafficking.
31:39
Speaker 1: So she wakes up from being unconscious, discovered she has
31:42
Speaker 1: been raped, and then stabs her attacker thirty times and
31:49
Speaker 1: cops a dame. He was asleep at the time, or
31:52
Speaker 1: does she say he was asleep at the time, Philip
31:56
Speaker 1: in her plea, she said he was asleep. I mean
32:00
Speaker 1: there were two people there that night, but there's no
32:02
Speaker 1: respute that But you know that that makes a big
32:06
Speaker 1: difference under Iowa law, because you know, there are a
32:09
Speaker 1: lot of people who said to me that they think
32:12
Speaker 1: this is an obvious case of self defense. You know,
32:14
Speaker 1: Iowa does have a standard ground law, but that law
32:18
Speaker 1: and another law that would protect people under a self
32:21
Speaker 1: defense statute would not apply according to Iowa law because
32:26
Speaker 1: prosecutors made the argument that she stabbed mister Brooks while
32:30
Speaker 1: he was sleeping after the commission of a forcible felony.
32:33
Speaker 1: In Iowa, you can defend yourself from imminent threat during
32:37
Speaker 1: the commission of a forcible felony. But in this case,
32:39
Speaker 1: mister Brooks had gotten off of her and the forcible
32:42
Speaker 1: felony had been finished, and so prosecutors argued at sentencing
32:46
Speaker 1: that she could have left. You know, she was gathering
32:48
Speaker 1: her clothes when she made the decision to stab him,
32:51
Speaker 1: and she could have walked right out the front door.
32:53
Speaker 1: Got it dodger. Caroline West joining me, clinical psychologist, What
32:56
Speaker 1: do you make of that? What I make of that
32:59
Speaker 1: is that often times the laws don't reflect the reality
33:02
Speaker 1: for victims that under the law they may have assumed
33:07
Speaker 1: that she could have just simply walked away or gotten
33:10
Speaker 1: herself out, that she was in danger at that particular
33:14
Speaker 1: moment when she stabbed him, But in the mind of survivors,
33:19
Speaker 1: that just may not really seem to be the case,
33:22
Speaker 1: given her vulnerabilities and the level of trauma that she
33:25
Speaker 1: had experienced. Take a listen to Kelly Marie Meek from
33:28
Speaker 1: the Iowa Coalition Against Sex Assault from ksey RG nine.
33:34
Speaker 1: Kelly Marie Meek works at the Iowa Coalition Against Sexual
33:37
Speaker 1: Assault as the prevention and public health coordinator. She says,
33:40
Speaker 1: seventeen year old Piper Lewis shouldn't have to spend five
33:44
Speaker 1: years in a women's rehab center and pay one hundred
33:47
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars in restitution. I'm grateful that she's
33:51
Speaker 1: not in prison, but still very worried when I think
33:54
Speaker 1: about the amount of perfection and the standards that she's
33:58
Speaker 1: going to be held to for the next five years
34:00
Speaker 1: under very close supervision. The standard to which this young
34:04
Speaker 1: girl is going to be held, well, you know what,
34:06
Speaker 1: let's hear from Piper Lewis herself. Take a listen. Walking
34:11
Speaker 1: through the fire of Phoenix, like me, he carries on
34:13
Speaker 1: its back as it rises from the ashes. This means
34:16
Speaker 1: I face rape, abuse, hatred, betrayal, manipulation, abandonment, loss of
34:23
Speaker 1: apparent loneliness, and self relevation. The list goes on and on.
34:29
Speaker 1: I wonder what else I will carry in that sack
34:31
Speaker 1: of beautiful pain. I often ask myself why. The answer
34:36
Speaker 1: is clear, hurt people, hurt people, whether it's intentional or not.
34:42
Speaker 1: Giving up. But yet again, some days I feel like
34:45
Speaker 1: giving up. But yet again I am delight At the
34:47
Speaker 1: end of the tunnel. I flicker brighter than the simple
34:50
Speaker 1: thought of my own future. I must prevail. I own
34:54
Speaker 1: the power to take accountability. I do not fear the
34:59
Speaker 1: thought of further incarceration. I fear not being able to
35:02
Speaker 1: accomplish some of my goals. I even graduated high school
35:06
Speaker 1: at age seventeen, a year ahead of my class. I'm
35:10
Speaker 1: going to be a fashion and graphic designer, open up
35:13
Speaker 1: my business titled Pie, create a place of comfort and
35:17
Speaker 1: acceptance for girls like me. Become a junile justice advocate
35:21
Speaker 1: for youth in Iowa, be a counselor, start a family,
35:25
Speaker 1: and tell my story. No matter what the next chapter is,
35:28
Speaker 1: I will still rise. To Greg Shepherd joining me former
35:33
Speaker 1: Phoenix PD, now investigator with Hype for Justice who investigates
35:38
Speaker 1: and tries to stop human trafficking. When I hear this
35:43
Speaker 1: little girl talking about being a phoenix rising out of
35:47
Speaker 1: the ash as her dream to be a counselor and
35:51
Speaker 1: start a family and tell her story, it nearly breaks
35:54
Speaker 1: my heart. But it's kind of it's a silver lining
35:59
Speaker 1: because she has a passion. There's a lot of other
36:01
Speaker 1: trauma victims that don't even have that path yet, but
36:04
Speaker 1: she's already has that path within her, So that's a
36:07
Speaker 1: very good thing. I think. Unfortunately, this case is an
36:11
Speaker 1: example of laws and law enforcement trying to catch up
36:16
Speaker 1: to modern day thinking in regards to sex trafficking. Because
36:22
Speaker 1: I correct me if I'm wrong, mister Jones. I think
36:25
Speaker 1: the Iowa law requires that restitution. There's no leeway. It's
36:31
Speaker 1: a requirement. And I don't think Iowa has the safe
36:35
Speaker 1: harbor aspect that some other states have that give sex
36:39
Speaker 1: trafficking victims some immunity for that restitution. And as far
36:43
Speaker 1: as the law enforcement, a lot of law enforcement, if
36:46
Speaker 1: they're not educated, they see things. You know, one way,
36:52
Speaker 1: this is a stabbing. We're going to solve the stabbing.
36:54
Speaker 1: We have a stabbing suspect and a stabbing victim, and
36:57
Speaker 1: that's what they do. They don't look at the big
37:00
Speaker 1: This is not the first time a rape victim has
37:03
Speaker 1: been punished. There's a case of crystal Abble Seth. The
37:07
Speaker 1: rape victim has to pay off the rapist. Listen, he
37:11
Speaker 1: offered to bring me home that night because my friend
37:14
Speaker 1: wanted to leave early. Christa Abel Seth knows all too
37:17
Speaker 1: well about overcoming adversity. The thirty two year old is
37:21
Speaker 1: the mother of a sixteen year old who we are
37:23
Speaker 1: not naming, we're identifying because she's a miner. She was
37:26
Speaker 1: also born from a rape and it was a thirty
37:28
Speaker 1: year old man when I was sixteen. Abel Seth recalls
37:32
Speaker 1: meeting this man, John Barnes, at a bar and Hammond
37:35
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and five. He offered to take
37:37
Speaker 1: her home instead of bring me home. He brought me
37:40
Speaker 1: to his home and once inside, he proceeded to rape
37:45
Speaker 1: me on his living room couch. And from that rate,
37:49
Speaker 1: that statutory rate, she has a child and now her
37:53
Speaker 1: rapist once it's how support He hasn't even been raising
37:59
Speaker 1: the baby ever. That is the case of Apple Seth.
38:03
Speaker 1: But then in our cut thirty two, you hear about
38:07
Speaker 1: yet another rape victim. He served jail time again after
38:11
Speaker 1: being convicted of raping another victim between the ages of
38:14
Speaker 1: thirteen and fifteen years old in twenty ten. But last month,
38:18
Speaker 1: Santilac County Prosecuting attorney James V. Young and Santilac District
38:22
Speaker 1: Court Judge Gregory Ross signed a paternity order that gives
38:26
Speaker 1: Tiffany's attacker joint legal custody of their son and their
38:29
Speaker 1: right to pursue parenting time. I was receiving government assistants
38:34
Speaker 1: and they told me if I did not tell them
38:36
Speaker 1: who the father was my child, that they would take
38:39
Speaker 1: that away from me. Right now, to Philip Jones, I've
38:41
Speaker 1: got so many other similar cases where rape victims have
38:46
Speaker 1: been punished, essentially, what is the latest in this case,
38:51
Speaker 1: Philip Jones. So on Monday, Lewis's attorneys argued to District
38:55
Speaker 1: Judge David M. Porter that he should overturn his own
38:58
Speaker 1: decision and not require Lewis to pay one hundred and
39:03
Speaker 1: fifty thousand dollars to the estate of Brooks. Porter cited
39:07
Speaker 1: in his decision cited a twenty seventeen Iowa Supreme Court
39:11
Speaker 1: ruling in which a Cedar Rapids teen plotted with her
39:15
Speaker 1: nineteen year old boyfriend to kill a man and rob
39:18
Speaker 1: him of two thousand dollars. In this filing on Monday,
39:22
Speaker 1: they argued that the cases are fundamentally different because Lewis
39:26
Speaker 1: did not plan to kill Brooks and that she only
39:29
Speaker 1: killed him because he raped her and caused her to
39:33
Speaker 1: be put into this fit of rage. They also argued
39:36
Speaker 1: that under the Iowa Constitution and under the eighth and
39:40
Speaker 1: end it to the US Constitution, Lewis should be excluded
39:44
Speaker 1: or should be prohibited from paying excessive fines. But for
39:48
Speaker 1: the conduct of her sex trafficker, Piper would never have
39:51
Speaker 1: met mister Brooks, and mister Brooks, in turn, never would
39:54
Speaker 1: have had the opportunity to rape this fifteen year old
39:57
Speaker 1: homeless runaway girl, they wrote. Finally, they argued that Lewis
40:02
Speaker 1: received a deferred judgment, and in a deferred judgment, a
40:06
Speaker 1: guilty verdict is technically withheld even after a person admits
40:10
Speaker 1: the guilt to which they were charged with. The Cedar
40:13
Speaker 1: Rapids team cited by Brooks did are cited by Porter
40:18
Speaker 1: did not receive a deferred judgments, so they argued that
40:21
Speaker 1: a deferred judgment is punitive and not rehabilitative at all.
40:27
Speaker 1: If Porter does not overturn his decision, they asked him
40:30
Speaker 1: to stay his decision so that they can appeal it
40:32
Speaker 1: to either the Iowa Court of Appeals or the Iowa
40:34
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. I'm very curious what's going to happen to
40:37
Speaker 1: the judge that ordered this girl to play one hundred
40:40
Speaker 1: and fifty grand to her rapist that she killed. Now,
40:45
Speaker 1: according to the judge, he had to do that under
40:48
Speaker 1: the law. And I say, as a legal expert, if
40:52
Speaker 1: that is the law, then the law is an ass
40:58
Speaker 1: Nancy Grace Crumps too are signing off good Byson H.