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A conviction in the rape of Alice Sebold, the award-profitable author of “The Charming Bones,” has been overturned 40 several years afterwards because of to severe mistakes by the prosecution, officers mentioned.
Anthony Broadwater, 61, was cleared on Monday by New York Supreme Court Justice Gordon Cuffy of fees that he assaulted Sebold when she was an 18-year-aged to start with-yr university student at Syracuse College in 1981. Sebold, now 58, wrote about the assault in her 1999 memoir, “Lucky.”
Sebold picked out an additional gentleman, not Broadwater, in a law enforcement lineup following the assault but afterwards identified Broadwater as her attacker on the witness stand.
She wrote in “Lucky” that Broadwater and the other male in the lineup appeared “almost identical” and that she feared a defense lawyer would exploit a white woman’s confusion over two Black guys.
Broadwater invested 16 decades in prison and experienced been on New York’s sexual intercourse offender registry since his launch in 1999. He’ll now be taken off that checklist.
Broadwater dropped his head in his hands and sobbed when the decide cleared him. (See the video clip higher than.) “I hardly ever, ever imagined I would see the day that I would be exonerated,” he reported soon after the hearing.
“I’ve been crying tears of pleasure and aid the previous few of days,” Broadwater informed The Related Press the pursuing day. “I’m so elated, even the chilly can’t hold me cold.”
He explained to The New York Periods: “I just hope and pray that it’s possible Ms. Sebold will appear forward and say, ‘Hey, I created a grave slip-up,’ and give me an apology. “I sympathize with her. But she was completely wrong.”
Broadwater recounted the damage the conviction had on his existence, even immediately after his launch from jail. He refused to have kids mainly because of the stigma of the conviction, he explained to the Syracuse Submit-Conventional.
At his listening to, Onondaga County District Lawyer William Fitzpatrick referred to as Broadwater’s conviction an injustice.
“I’m not likely to sully this proceeding by stating ‘I’m sorry,’” mentioned Fitzpatrick. “That does not reduce it. This should really never ever have took place.”
Broadwater was convicted mostly for the reason that of Sebold’s identification and for the reason that an pro witness testified that microscopic hair evaluation experienced tied him to the rape. The validity of that variety of analysis has considering the fact that been discounted by the Office of Justice. That was the only purported forensic backlink to the criminal offense.
Scrutiny of the scenario from Broadwater increased immediately after “Lucky” was picked up in 2019 for a Netflix film.
Govt producer Tim Mucciante began questioning the conviction as he pored about the script and Sebold’s memoir. He ultimately dropped the challenge and employed a non-public detective in an investigation that ended up in Fitzpatrick’s office. It is unclear what will come about to the film now.
Sebold, who lives in San Francisco, could not be reached for comment.
Her most noteworthy novel, “The Charming Bones,” is about the rape and murder of a teenage girl. The bestseller was built into a film in 2009.
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