New York state has agreed to pay $5.5 million in settlement to Anthony Broadwater, a man who was wrongly convicted of raping writer Alice Sebold in 1981.
The conviction was overturned last year, after Broadwater spent 16 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. The settlement was signed last week by lawyers for Broadwater and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
Broadwater was given the pseudonym of Gregory Madison in Sebold’s memoir, “Lucky,” where she recounted the attack and prosecution. Sebold failed to identify Broadwater in a police lineup, but he was still tried and convicted in 1982 after she identified him as her attacker on the witness stand. Broadwater was released in 1999 but had to register as a sex offender until his conviction was vacated last year.
Broadwater’s settlement with the state is still subject to approval by a judge. Broadwater has also filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against Onondaga County, the city of Syracuse, and an assistant district attorney and a police officer involved in prosecuting him.
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