(ANSA) - ROME, 01 DEC - The American writer AliceSebold has apologized to the man who in 1981 was unjustly accused of raping her and was recently fully acquitted, 23 years after having finished serving 16 years in prison.
Sebold was sexually assaulted when he was 18 and a student at Syrecuse University in New York. Some months later she reported to the police that she had seen the man on the street an African American who she recognized as the man who would have raped her. The police stopped Anhony Broadwater and in a confrontation with the American the author did not identify him as the perpetrator of the rape, but he was nevertheless arrested on the basis of other leads, including the description of the rapist she had previously given to the police. And he was condemned.
Broadwater was released from prison in 1998 after 16 years and remained on the blacklist of rapists until November 22, when the trial was reviewed and the circumstantial evidence adduced in court 40 years ago was declared no longer admissible. A few days after the man regained his reputation, Sebold wrote: "I am saddened above all because they have unjustly stolen the life that she could have led, and I am aware that no excuse can change what has happened and never will". Broadwater said he felt "relieved of his apology".
Alice Sebold, also known for the novel 'Amabili Remains' (The Lovely Bones) of 2002, in the autobiographical 'Lucky' (Fortunata) of 1999 tells the terrible experience of the rape suffered and the subsequent judicial labor.
The novel takes its name from the statement made to her by an agent who told her she was 'lucky' not to have been killed and dismembered, as happened to other rape victims.
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