Anthony Broadwater and the Alice Sebold Saga

I hope all my fellow American readers of my blog had a wonderful Thanksgiving, those who don’t celebrate Thanksgiving regardless I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. This newsletter will be a bit different. It’s still author and book related only it’s not about a book being made into a film, or a writer working on something or an author or their estate suing Hollywood for not getting an adaptation correct. This is a disturbing matter. For those who may not know or remember, there is an author named Alice Sebold. Alice is best known for her books “Lucky,” which is a memoir of her suffering rape and putting her rapist behind bars and “The Lovely Bones,” which is a fiction book about a girl who was murdered and raped and we get her point of view of her heavenly afterlife. I have read and watched the movie “The Lovely Bones,” but have not read “Lucky.”

 In the 1999 memoir Alice Sebold whose is Caucasian spoke about being raped by an unidentified African American man in 1981 and then encountering a man in the streets months later that she claimed was her attacker. Using her quote from her book and my source Newsweek.com 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,” Sebold wrote. “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.” Sebold couldn’t tell who her attacker was at the police lineup. She picked a different man as her attacker according to Sebold, “the expression in his eyes told me that if we were alone, if there were no wall between us, he would call me by name and then kill me. 

 Unfortunately for Anthony Broadwater, in 1982 he was convicted on two pieces of evidence—Sebold’s identifying him on the witness stand and a microscopic hair that an expert said linked him to the case at the time, which has since been thrown out by the U.S. Department of Justice. Anthony Broadwater spent sixteen years in prison for a crime he did not commit and in 1999 to 2021 spent twenty two years on the sex offender register which made it hard for him to get a job. Anthony did marry his now wife Alice but they never had children because he didn’t want this awful stigma to follow his children around.

 How Anthony Broadwater’s Conviction was overturned!

Netflix was doing a film adaptation of Alice Sebold’s “Lucky,” novel. Producer Tim Mucciante felt there were discrepancies in the story and in the script and he left the project. Tim in his own words said this according to eonline.com to the New York Times, I started having some doubts, not about the story that Alice told about her assault, which was tragic, but the second part of her book about the trial which didn’t hang together. Tim hired a PI and lawyers to investigate and then consult with the local DA’s office. The DA’s office agreed that the evidence provided in the 1982 trial was shoddy and asked the court to overturn the conviction this week. After the conviction was overturned, according to TMZ.com Broadwater, broke down in tears for what he called a travesty of justice that had besmirched his name (and his life) for decades now. Since this conviction has been overturned, You and The Haunting of Bly Manor actress Victoria Pandretti also dropped out of the film and the production and the funding of the film has all ended.

 Anthony Broadwater’s apology request, Alice Sebold’s Silence, and the backlash!

According to eonline.com Anthony Broadwater said regarding the overturning of his conviction and Alice Sebold, “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,” he told the New York Times. “I sympathize with her. But she was wrong.” Neither Alice Sebold nor any of her representatives have commented on what has happened. I hope Alice apologizes to Anthony Broadwater and gives him some sort of compensation for what he has been through. Whether someone thinks she lied about him raping her or that she made a mistake, Alice not issuing an apology right away puts her in an extremely bad light. Of course after something like this there is significant amount of backlash.

 On Amazon “Lucky is flooded with negative reviews after the Anthony Broadwater exoneration. I found out this bit of information as I was typing this long bit of news. This was from a Newsweek article that published the story 3 or 4 hours ago. One Amazon reviewer wrote, “This book is based on a false identification that ruined the life of an innocent man. If the identification was false, who knows what other aspects of this tale are false also.” Also according to Newsweek, It is not clear if Amazon intends to continue selling the book. At present, “Lucky” is still available to purchase on the site in Kindle, hardback and softcover versions. Currently there is a go fund me account that Tim Mucciante has posted on his twitter account if anyone is interested in helping out or sharing. It can’t bring back the stolen years but it’s something.