Author Alice Sebold apologizes to man cleared in 1981 rape

[Hoodat]

Author Alice Sebold apologizes to man cleared in 1981 rape

KAREN MATTHEWS (AP) - November 30, 2021, 7:06 PM

NEW YORK -- Author Alice Sebold publicly apologized Tuesday to the man who was exonerated last week in the 1981 rape that was the basis for her memoir “Lucky" and said she was struggling with the role she played “within a system that sent an innocent man to jail.”

Anthony Broadwater, 61, was convicted in 1982 of raping Sebold when she was a student at Syracuse University. He served 16 years in prison. His conviction was overturned Nov. 22 after prosecutors reexamined the case and determined there were serious flaws in his arrest and trial.

In a statement released to The Associated Press and later posted on Medium, Sebold, the author of the novels “The Lovely Bones” and “The Almost Moon," wrote to Broadwater that she was truly sorry for what he'd been through.  .  .  .

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory/author-alice-sebold-apologizes-man-cleared-1981-rape-81474173


She is blaming the legal system, not herself.  She is sorry for what the legal system did to Broadwater - not what she did to Broadwater.

[skeeter]

I smell another book coming.

[Hoodat]

From the article:

Sebold wrote in 1999's “Lucky” of being raped and then spotting a Black man in the street several months later who she believed was her attacker.

Sebold, who is white, went to police. An officer said the man in the street must have been Broadwater, who had supposedly been seen in the area.

After Broadwater was arrested, Sebold failed to identify him in a police lineup, picking a different man as her attacker because she was frightened of “the expression in his eyes.”

But prosecutors put Broadwater on trial anyway, telling Sebold . He was convicted based largely on Sebold identifying him as her rapist on the witness stand and testimony that microscopic hair analysis had tied him to the crime. That type of analysis has since been deemed junk science by the U.S. Department of Justice.

She passed over the man in a police lineup, but then came back under oath in court identifying him as her attacker.  And now after making money off of her story, all she can do is say she is sorry for what the system did to him?

[EdinVA]

[Right_in_Virginia]

‘Lucky’ author Alice Sebold apologizes to man wrongly convicted of her rape
NY Post,  Dec 1, 2021

Novelist Alice Sebold has finally apologized to the innocent man who spent 16 years in prison for her rape, as her publisher also yanked “Lucky,” the bestselling book she based on the crime.

“First, I want to say that I am truly sorry to Anthony Broadwater and I deeply regret what you have been through,” Sebold wrote Tuesday of the 61-year-old man exonerated in a Syracuse court on Monday last week.

“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 wrote on Medium, saying she “will remain sorry for the rest of my life.”

The novelist, now 58, said she was only now speaking out because “it has taken me these past eight days to comprehend how this could have happened.”

“I will continue to struggle with the role that I unwittingly played within a system that sent an innocent man to jail,” she wrote.

“I will also grapple with the fact that my rapist will, in all likelihood, never be known, may have gone on to rape other women, and certainly will never serve the time in prison that Mr. Broadwater did.”

Sebold described herself as a “traumatized 18-year-old rape victim” who “chose to put my faith in the American legal system.”

“My goal in 1982 was justice — not to perpetuate injustice,” Sebold insisted in her Medium post.  “And certainly not to forever, and irreparably, alter a young man’s life by the very crime that had altered mine,” she wrote.

Sebold identified Broadwater as her rapist at his trial, despite having earlier picked out another man who was with him in a lineup.

In her apology, she blamed “systemic issues in our judicial system.”  “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,” she wrote.


https://nypost.com/2021/12/01/alice-sebold-apologizes-to-man-wrongly-convicted-of-her-rape/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow

[Right_in_Virginia]

[Right_in_Virginia]

Sebold identified Broadwater as her rapist at his trial, despite having earlier picked out another man who was with him in a lineup.

And then went on to make millions from her novel about the experience.  I'm not sure an apology is going to cut it.

[Lando Lincoln]

And then went on to make millions from her novel about the experience.  I'm not sure an apology is going to cut it.

Oh, but it was an eloquent apology.  So, there's that.

[Free Vulcan]

And then went on to make millions from her novel about the experience.  I'm not sure an apology is going to cut it.

Yeah no kidding. A better idea might be to cut the guy a healthy check and at least make his retirement substantially more comfortable.

Money where your mouth is as the saying goes.

[DB]

The justice system didn't do it if all was based on her word. She did. It was her word that he was the guy who did it.

If the justice system had information that proved who she identified couldn't have done it then the justice system is primarily at fault in this case. In fact if there were people in the justice system that hid evidence that proved he didn't do it they should be charged with a serious crime and there should be no statute of limitations for it.

[Right_in_Virginia]

This is about more than entertainment @Cyber Liberty

This is a national story---and will get bigger.  Shouldn't this be in th National News Section?

[MOD4]

Article is listed under Entertainment section of ABC News.

[Lando Lincoln]

Article is listed under Entertainment section of ABC News.

Quite odd, or so it seems to me.