WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th March, 2023) Anthony J. Broadwater, who spent 16� years in prison after being wrongly convicted for an assault in Syracuse, New York, will receive more than $5 million from the state of New York.
"New York State has agreed to pay $5.5 million to a man who spent 16 years in prison after being wrongly convicted of raping the author Alice Sebold when she was a college student in Syracuse, N.Y., lawyers for the man said on Monday in a statement quoted by the New York Times. "The agreement would end a lawsuit filed by the man, Anthony J. Broadwater, 62, after his rape conviction was vacated in November 2021 by a state court judge who concluded that the case against Mr. Broadwater was deeply flawed."
Broadwater returned to Syracuse after serving in the military to care for his dying father. He was arrested and charged after 18-year-old Syracuse University freshman Alice Sebold was raped in a park near campus in 1981. Later, Sebold described her ordeal in a 1999 memoir "Lucky," which details the rape of a teen. Police arrested Broadwater five months later after Sebold saw him on the streets and contacted police.
Even though Sebold identified a different man in a police lineup, and hair evidence did not tie Broadwater to the crime, he was convicted and sentenced to 16.5 years in state prison and more than 20 years longer on the sex offender registry "for a conviction based on a botched police lineup as well as since-debunked science." Broadwater always maintained his innocence and made several failed attempts to get lawyers and the Innocence Project to help him prove his innocence. He was finally exonerated in 2021 because of the herculean efforts of two defense lawyers, Melissa Schwartz and J. David Hammond.
According to the New Times, they argued in court that prosecutorial misconduct had muddied the police lineup, explaining that the prosecutor had lied to Sebold that Broadwater and the man next to him in the lineup were friends who had purposely appeared in the lineup together to trick her. That lie, the lawyers argued, improperly influenced Sebold's testimony.
Broadwater was released from prison in 1998 and had been struggling to regain his life when the book "Lucky" was published. A producer's research into the memoir produced a number of questions and raised enough doubts that the planned film adaptation of the memoir was shelved.
Broadwater sued the state in the amount of $50 million for wrongful imprisonment but the state was dragging its feet.
"It's a struggle. I'll just continue to do what I do," Broadwater said in an interview with Syracuse.com last September as he collected scrap metal that he sells to make a living.
Then in October, when reporters asked New York State Attorney General Letitia James about the state's wrongful imprisonment lawsuit, she said Broadwater had been unjustly treated and said she hoped a settlement could be reached soon.
After that interview, Broadwater's lawyers said, settlement negotiations began in earnest with the AG's office setting aside a part of a court process that could have taken years. Staff asked his lawyers what amount Broadwater might accept and that led to the agreed amount.
