A Black man wrongfully convicted in 1982 of raping a white woman is now suing the state of New York for $50 million. A re-examining of the case of Anthony Broadwater prompted a court to fully exonerate him of all wrongdoing in 2021 after he’d spent 16 years in prison and 22 years on a sex offender registry list.
A judge vacated Broadwater’s rape conviction in November 2021 after a movie producer gathering research for his film had doubts about his culpability and suggested that law enforcement re-examine his case.
Once they did, investigators saw inconsistencies and flaws in the case that supported the radical conviction reversal after 30 years. Since the ruling has been overturned, the 61-year-old has filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit against the state.
He also plans to sue the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office and the City of Syracuse Police, accusing the agencies of egregious misconduct, according to Davis Vanguard.
Broadwater was convicted of raping Alice Sebold when, in 1981, she was an 18-year-old student at Syracuse University. She said he violated her in a tunnel at Thornden Park Amphitheater near the school’s campus when she was a freshman.
Sebold went on to be a successful author, publishing the New York Times best-selling book “Lucky” in 1999. In the novel, she wrote about the alleged assault, detailing how, five months after the incident, she was able to identify the Black man who raped her.
Though Sebold said she was able to identify Broadwater when he walked innocently down the street and in the courtroom during the trial, she was unable to pinpoint him in a police lineup with other Black men.
She instead had chosen a man standing next to Broadwater, Henry Hudson, because they reportedly looked alike.
In “Lucky,” she told of a prosecutor claiming that Broadwater tricked her into picking the wrong man out of the lineup. Prosecutors claimed Broadwater had requested Hudson, who was serving time, be added to the lineup; Broadwater denied making that request.
During a two-day trial, as a result of her sole testimony that she was sure Broadwater was the man who raped her, Broadwater was convicted of the crime.
Because he refused to change his story, maintaining his innocence for the entirety of his incarceration, he was denied early release five times. In the year of the release of Sebold’s acclaimed novel, Broadwater had to register as a sex offender.
Before this incident, Broadwater had no adult criminal record.
In 2021, Timothy Mucciante was hired to be the executive producer of the cinematic adaptation of “Lucky,” and saw things not adding up as he translated the book to film.
So, he hired a private investigator to unpack the case and help assess if the man convicted of Sebold’s rape was not actually the man who did it.
Private Investigator Dan Myers, a former police officer who served for 20 years, told The Washington Post that after speaking to the man once for an hour, he knew that he was innocent. Within five months of this meeting, Broadwater’s name had been cleared.
After the exoneration, Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick said that this case was “professionally sickening.”
“This was not Alabama in 1950,” he said. “This was Syracuse, New York, in 1982.”
His statement comes in the shadow of new evidence that shows that the prosecution used hair analysis to convict Broadwater, even though the practice is considered “junk science.” Also, the man’s lawyers submitted that there was “prosecutorial misconduct,” when Sebold was unable to distinguish Broadwater from other men or mark him as her assailant.
Broadwater’s legal team, headed by Earl Ward, argued that the prosecution “deliberately coached her into rehabilitating her misidentification.”
They argued that “single-witness cross-racial identification” is not always reliable and that the judge was acting too friendly with Sebold, demonstrating actions that were “highly improper and reinforces the lack of due process.”
Retired prosecutor William Mastine, who tried the case after being assigned to it, said that while he did think that the case was “very unusual … from the very beginning,” he rejects that he did anything wrong. He said, “I don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t have any opinion on his case being vacated.”
The lawyers also suggested two other things in the case were irregular: the fact there was only one witness and the judge’s behavior. The judge who ruled during this case is no longer alive to defend these allegations.
As for her part, Sebold says that she is “sorry” and has issued an apology on Medium, eight days after Broadwater’s conviction was vacated.
“First, I want to say that I am truly sorry to Anthony Broadwater, and I deeply regret what you have been through,” her statement began.
“I am sorry most of all for the fact that the life you could have led was unjustly robbed from you, and I know that no apology can change what happened to you and never will.”
She blamed the system for doing this to Broadwater, saying that in a way she was betrayed by a legal system she trusted.
She wrote, “40 years ago, as a traumatized 18-year-old rape victim, I chose to put my faith in the American legal system. 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.”
Sebold may have suffered some misfortune in regard to Broadwater’s “unfair conviction,” but she has also celebrated some good fortune. The novel “Lucky,” the fictionalized book that was based on the alleged rape, has sold over one million copies, She has amassed three best-selling books.
Scribner, the publisher of the novel, also announced in 2021, that it will temporarily stop distribution of the book, sharing, “Following the recent exoneration of Anthony Broadwater, and in consultation with the author, Scribner and [its parent] Simon & Schuster will cease distribution of all formats of Alice Sebold’s 1999 memoir Lucky while Sebold and Scribner together consider how the work might be revised.”
There reportedly now are no plans to move forward on a film adaptation of the book.
In a statement, Broadwater said he was relieved Sebold had apologized. “It’s still painful to me because I was wrongfully convicted, but this will help me in my process to come to peace with what happened,” his statement read in part.
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