"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."

"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.... 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. 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.”

Says Alice Sebold, quoted in "Alice Sebold apologizes to man cleared of 1981 rape featured in her memoir/Author struggles with role she played ‘within a system that sent an innocent man to jail’ after Anthony Broadwater, 61, exonerated" (The Guardian).

"I just hope and pray that maybe Ms. Sebold will come forward and say, 'Hey, I made a grave mistake,' and give me an apology. I sympathize with her. But she was wrong."

Said Anthony J. Broadwater, quoted in "Man Is Exonerated in Rape Case Described in Alice Sebold’s Memoir/Anthony J. Broadwater was convicted of the 1981 attack in Syracuse, N.Y., in a case the district attorney and a state judge agreed was flawed" (NYT). 

Sebold is the author of the novel "The Lovely Bones," and the memoir is "Lucky." 

The exoneration came about because there was to be a film of “Lucky,” and the executive producer, Timothy Mucciante, noticed problems with the story of the conviction of Broadwater.

Mr. Mucciante said that he ended up leaving the production in June because of his skepticism about the case and how it was being portrayed. He hired a private investigator, Dan Myers... to look into the evidence against Mr. Broadwater, and became convinced of Mr. Broadwater’s innocence. Mr. Myers suggested they bring the evidence they gathered to a lawyer and recommended [David] Hammond, who reviewed the investigation and agreed there was a strong case. Around the same time, Mr. Broadwater decided to hire Mr. Hammond based on the recommendation of another local lawyer. Mr. Broadwater, who was released in 1998, had been scrimping and saving to hire lawyer after lawyer to try and prove his innocence.

Mucciante sounds like something of a hero in this story, but you can see how practical considerations would have been adequate motivation. Imagine if this movie, based on Sebold's telling of her story, had come out and the whole world suddenly took a hard look and considered things from Broadwater's point of view. Broadwater would have come forward, and the movie would have been destroyed. I question how the movie idea even got as far as it did. And how did the book sit out there for so long without a serious challenge? Broadwater has been "scrimping" for 20 years trying to get some attention to his ordeal, which goes back 40 years?!