Man Imprisoned for 16 Years Will Get $5.5 Million After Author of ‘Lovely Bones’ Wrongfully Accused Him of Rape

Anthony J. Broadwater, 62, served 16 years behind bars for a wrongful conviction of the rape of award-winning author, Alice Sebold. Broadwater will receive $5.5 million from the state of New York, People reports.

Sebold was 18 years old, attending her first year of college at Syracuse University when she was raped in a park near the campus in 1981. Independent reports that she wrote details about the attack in her 1999 memoir ‘Lucky,’ where she writes that she saw a black man on the streets months after the attack and was sure that he was her attacker. 

Sebold described her attacker to the police who created a sketch that did not resemble Broadwater; Sebold even identified a different man as her attacker during a police lineup, but said she made a wrong choice and identified Broadwater as her attacker in court.

Broadwater was a 20 year old Marine at the time, and he had just returned home to spend time with his ill father. 

After his release from prison, Broadwater was registered as a sex offender, and unsuccessfully tried to appeal his conviction four times before he was finally pardoned during his fifth appeal in 2021 after 40 years. For years, he had to work odd jobs due to his conviction narrowing his prospects, and he’d attend family gatherings for only a few minutes, but leave shortly after, uncomfortable from receiving the cold shoulder.

It is claimed that Sebold has apologized to Broadwater, and he’s accepted it if “it’s sincere, and from her heart.”