Man wrongly accused in author Alice Sebold case settles lawsuit for $5.5 million

New York will pay $5.5 million to a man falsely accused of raping author Alice Sebold when she was a student at Syracuse University, according to his lawyers.

Anthony Broadwater’s conviction for raping Sebold in 1981 was overturned in 2021, after he had spent 16 years imprisoned before being released in 1991.

The Associated Press reported that Broadwater’s lawyers said Broadwater settled with New York state last week in a agreement signed by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

“I appreciate what Attorney General James has done, and I hope and pray that others in my situation can achieve the same measure of justice. We all suffer from destroyed lives,” Broadwater said in a statement, reported by the AP.

The AP also reported that a spokesperson for Sebold said in a statement, “Obviously no amount of money can erase the injustices Mr. Broadwater suffered, but the settlement now officially acknowledges them,.”

Sebold was a freshman at Syracuse University when she was raped near campus in 1981. She published a memoir titled “Lucky” in 1999 where she described the attack, and later published her 2002 novel, “The Lovely Bones,” which described the aftereffects of a girl being raped and murdered and was later made into a movie.

The Hill reached out to Broadwater’s legal team to confirm the news.