After having her book pulled from publishers and an entire movie deal scrapped, Alice Sebold — the author behind bestselling books The Lovely Bones and Lucky — has apologized to the man she falsely accused of being her rapist 40 years ago. Sebold first shared the apology with the Associated Press before later publishing it on Medium, writing she was “truly sorry” to Anthony Broadwater Jr., the man who served 16 years behind bars following the wrongful conviction, and knows “no apology can change what happened to you and never will.”
“I want to say that I am truly sorry to Anthony Broadwater and I deeply regret what you have been through,” Sebold wrote. “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. Of the many things I wish for you, I hope most of all that you and your family will be granted the time and privacy to heal.”
This all comes a week after a New York state judge overturned Broadwater’s conviction of first-degree rape, which Sebold wrote about in her 1999 memoir Lucky. In the book, Sebold describes the moment she located and falsely accused Broadwater with striking detail, writing:
“He was smiling as he approached. He recognized me. It was a stroll in the park to him; he had met an acquaintance on the street. ‘Hey, girl,’ he said. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ I looked directly at him. Knew his face had been the face over me in the tunnel.”
However, 40 years later, we now know Sebold was tragically incorrect in her accusation.
Prior to this shocking revelation, Lucky was in the process of being turned into a feature film starring You‘s Victoria Pedretti. However, in the midst of production an executive producer on the project began to doubt Broadwater’s guilt, eventually exiting the film and hiring a private investigator to look into the case.
Ultimately, the investigator and new defense attorney discovered Broadwater had been convicted on “insufficient and now-discredited forms of evidence” and presented that argument to the court, which wholly agreed with them. Following the trial, District Attorney William Fitzpatrick reportedly told the court “I’m not going to sully these proceedings by saying, ‘I’m sorry. That doesn’t cut it. This should never have happened,” a sentiment echoed by Sebold in her apology.
“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 said. “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.”
As for Broadwater, after 40 years of maintaining his innocence — which ultimately led him to be denied parole several times while imprisoned — he says he has been “crying tears of joy and relief.” Just last week, Broadwater told the New York Times he was hopeful there would be an apology and can “sympathize with her,” but ultimately “she was wrong.”