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Alice Sebold apologizes to Anthony Broadwater, the man who was exonerated for raping her after years in prison

“First, I want to say that I’m really sorry Anthony Broadwater and I deeply regret what you’ve been through,” Sebold, author of “The Lovely Bones,” wrote in a blog post. statement posted on medium.com.

Broadwater, who has always kept her virginity, was convicted of rape in 1982 and served 16 years in prison. He was denied pardon at least five times because he did not admit to a crime he did not commit, according to his attorney. He tried at least five times to overturn the conviction, he told CNN.

Last week, a New York State Supreme Court judge cleared Broadwater and dropped his conviction and other charges related to it. Onondaga County District Attorney joined the campaign to have the conviction cleared.

Broadwater was convicted on two pieces of evidence – Sebold’s account and interracial identification – the author was White and Broadwater was Black – and analysis of a piece of hair was later determined to be faulty. , his lawyer wrote.

In “Lucky,” Sebold writes that after she failed to identify Broadwater on the police team, “a detective and a prosecutor told her behind the lineup that she had picked the wrong person and how the police The prosecutor intentionally trained her to rehabilitate her false identity.” according to the attorney’s assertion that led to Broadwater’s pardon.

The unreliability of the hair analysis and the conversation between the prosecutor and Sebold after sentencing would probably lead to a different verdict if it were to come to trial, the lawyers said.

“I’m 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 sorry for what happened to him,” Sebold said.

Sebold described the rape that occurred while she was a freshman at Syracuse University in 1981, with brutal realism in “Lucky”. It was published a year after Broadwater was released from prison.

Her publisher Scribner and its parent company, Simon & Schuster, will stop distributing the book in all formats “while Sebold and Scribner work together to consider how the work might be modified”, says Brian Belfiglio , Scribner’s vice president of marketing and publicity, said in a statement to CNN.

CNN has reached out to Sebold and her representatives for comment.

Sebold wrote: “Forty years ago, as an 18-year-old rape victim, I chose to put my trust in the American legal system. My goal in 1982 was justice – not going forward. perpetuating injustice”. “And certainly irrevocably, and irreparably, changed the life of a young man by the very crime that changed me.”

Broadwater last week described how his life was ruined by false accusations.

He struggled to find a job after being released from prison when his employer discovered his criminal record.

“I did what I could, and that’s just, you know – creating work for myself like landscaping, tree work, transportation, cleaning,” he told CNN.

His wife wanted children, but “I’m not going to bring children in the world because of this. And now, we’re over, we can’t have children,” Broadwater told reporters after the trial. .

“I will still regret for the rest of my life that while pursuing justice through the legal system, my own misfortune led to Mr. Broadwater’s unjust conviction for which he served.” not only 16 years behind bars but also in ways that continue to inflict injury and stigma, almost a life sentence,” Sebold wrote.

After being vindicated, Broadwater said he wanted an apology from the author, but also acknowledged what she had suffered.

“I sympathize with her, what happened to her,” he said. “I just want a sincere apology. I accept. I’m not bitter or mean to her.”

While she said she struggled “with the role I unwittingly played in a system that put an innocent man in jail,” she said she struggled “with the fact that my rapist, in all likelihood, never known, may have gone on to rape other women, and certainly would never have served time in jail for the time that Mr. Broadwater did.”

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