Man wrongfully convicted of raping author Alice Sebold, basis of her book Lucky, awarded $5.5 million after 16 years in prison

The man who spent sixteen years behind bars after being wrongfully convicted of raping author Alice Sebold when she was a student at Syracuse University in 1981 has been awarded $5.5 million by the state of New York.

Anthony Broadwater, 62, was released in 1999 and had his conviction overturned in 2021, however, the ruling was only signed by the relevant authorities last week. The settlement amount is still pending approval by a judge.



According to CBS News, Broadwater thanked New York Attorney General Letitia James for her help in clearing his name.

"I hope and pray that others in my situation can achieve the same measure of justice," he said. "We all suffer from destroyed lives."

James decried the justice system's treatment of Broadwater, lamenting the fact that he "was convicted for a crime he never committed, and was incarcerated despite his innocence."

"While we cannot undo the wrongs from more than four decades ago," James added, "this settlement agreement is a critical step to deliver some semblance of justice to Mr. Broadwater."

Sebold admitted that "no amount of money can erase the injustices Mr. Broadwater suffered," suggesting that at least "the settlement now officially acknowledges them."

The author was just eighteen when she claimed Broadwater raped her in a park near campus, and went on to detail the attack in a memoir titled "Lucky," released in 1999.

She revealed that she saw Broadwater on the street months after the incident and believed him to be the attacker. He was promptly arrested, and found guilty as the result of microscopic hair analysis, a form of evidence now largely discredited.

"I chose to put my faith in the American legal system," Sebold wrote in 2021. "My goal in 1982 was justice — not to perpetuate injustice. And certainly not to forever, and irreparably, alter a young man's life by the very crime that had altered mine."

"I am grateful that Mr. Broadwater has finally been vindicated, but the fact remains that 40 years ago, he became another young Black man brutalized by our flawed legal system. I will forever be sorry for what was done to him."