Reposted from @therealboycewatkins NEW YORK (AP) — Author Alice Sebold 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 on 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,” said that as a “traumatized 18-year-old rape victim” she chose to put her faith in the American legal system. “My goal in 1982 was justice – not to perpetuate injustice,” Sebold said. “And certainly not to forever, and irreparably, alter a young man’s life by the very crime that had altered mine.” Melissa Swartz, an attorney for Broadwater, said he had no comment on Sebold’s statement. 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.” #anthonybroadwater #history #help #alicesebold https://www.instagram.com/p/CXY4GNKF7Am/?utm_medium=tumblr
