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White Woman Apologizes To Black Man Who Spent 16 Years In Jail After She Falsely Accused Him Of R*ping Her

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White Woman Apologizes to Black Man Who Spent 16 Years In Jail After She Falsely Accused Him of R*ping Her
A popular writer, Alice Sebold has tendered an apology to a black man she falsely accused of r%ping her over 30 years ago.
Sebold went ahead to become a best-selling author of the memoir “Lucky” and the novel “The Lovely Bones,”.
She apologized publicly on Tuesday to Anthony J. Broadwater, the man who was wrongly convicted of r%ping her in 1982 after she had identified him in court as her attacker.
The apology came eight days after the conviction of the man, Anthony J. Broadwater, was vacated by a state court judge in Syracuse, N.Y., who concluded, in consultation with the local district attorney and Mr. Broadwater’s lawyers, that the case against him was deeply flawed.
As a result of the conviction, Mr. Broadwater, 61, spent 16 years in prison before being released in 1998 and was forced to register as a s3x offender.
In a statement posted on the website Medium, Ms. Sebold, who described the rape and the ensuing trial in “Lucky,” said she regretted having “unwittingly” played a part in “a system that sent an innocent man to jail.”
 
“I am sorry most of all for the fact that the life you could have led was unjustly robbed from you,” she wrote. “And I know that no apology can change what happened to you and never will. It has taken me these past eight days to comprehend how this could have happened.”
Ms. Sebold’s statement was reported earlier by The Associated Press. Her publisher, Scribner, said she was not available for additional comment.
Scribner said last week that it had no plans to update the memoir’s text based on Mr. Broadwater’s exoneration. But on Tuesday, the company said it would cease distribution of “Lucky” while it and Ms. Sebold “consider how the work might be revised.”
Mr. Broadwater, in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday, said he was “relieved and grateful” for Ms. Sebold’s apology.
 
“It took a lot of courage, and I guess she’s brave and weathering through the storm like I am,” he said. “To make that statement, it’s a strong thing for her to do, understanding that she was a victim and I was a victim too.”
Ms. Sebold was 18 and a student at Syracuse University when the r%pe that led to Mr. Broadwater’s wrongful conviction occurred.
In “Lucky,” which was published in 1999, she gives a searing account of the assault and of the trauma she subsequently endured. She also writes in detail about the trial and about how she became convinced she had recognized Mr. Broadwater, whom she referred to with a pseudonym in the book, as her attacker after passing him on the street months after the r%pe.
The memoir chronicles mishaps in the case, including the fact that a composite sketch of her attacker, based on her description, did not resemble him.
The book also describes Ms. Sebold’s fear that the prosecution might be derailed after she identified a different man, not Mr. Broadwater, in a police lineup.
Later, she identified Mr. Broadwater as her attacker in court. After a brief trial, he was convicted of first-degree rape and five other charges.
“Lucky” started Ms. Sebold’s career and paved the way for her breakout novel, “The Lovely Bones,” which also centers on sexual assault. It has sold millions of copies and was made into a feature film.
Although Ms. Sebold gave Mr. Broadwater the fictitious name Gregory Madison in the memoir, he said he had been forced to suffer the stigma of being branded a s3x offender even after being released from prison.
He had always insisted he was innocent and was denied parole several times for refusing to acknowledge guilt. He took two polygraph tests, decades apart, with experts who determined that his account was truthful.
He tried repeatedly over the years to hire lawyers to help prove his innocence. Those efforts were unsuccessful until recently, when a planned film adaptation of “Lucky” helped raise new questions about the case.
Timothy Mucciante, who was working as executive producer on the film version, said in an interview with The Times that he had started to doubt Ms. Sebold’s account after reading the memoir and the script earlier this year.
Mr. Mucciante said he had been struck by how little evidence was presented at Mr. Broadwater’s trial. He said he had been fired from the production after raising questions about the story. (The feature film was dropped after losing its financing, Variety reported.)
Broadwater in the middle
Broadwater in the middle – Katrina Tulloch/The Post-Standard, via Associated Press
“It seemed like Anthony was wronged,” Mr. Mucciante told The Times.
Mr. Mucciante hired a private investigator, Dan Myers, who had spent 20 years with the Sheriff’s Office in Onondaga County, N.Y., before retiring as a detective in 2020. After finding and interviewing Mr. Broadwater, Mr. Myers became convinced he had been falsely accused.
Mr. Myers, who shares office space with a law firm, recommended that Mr. Broadwater hire one of the lawyers there, J. David Hammond. Mr. Hammond reviewed the investigation and agreed that there was a strong argument for setting the conviction aside.
In their motion to vacate the conviction, Mr. Hammond and a second lawyer, Melissa K. Swartz, argued that the case rested entirely on two flawed elements: Ms. Sebold’s courtroom identification of Mr. Broadwater and a now-discredited method of microscopic hair analysis.
Mr. Mucciante’s production company, Red Badge Films, is now working on a documentary about the case, “Unlucky,” with a second production company, Red Hawk Films. Mr. Broadwater and those who helped vacate the conviction are also participating.
In her statement, Ms. Sebold expressed sorrow that in seeking justice for herself, she had harmed Mr. Broadwater beyond the 16 years he was incarcerated “in ways that further serve to wound and stigmatize, nearly a full life sentence.”
 
She also sounded anguished over a question that remains unresolved.
“I will also grapple,” she wrote, “with the fact that my rapist will, in all likelihood, never be known.”
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Police Fine British Prime Minister For Not Wearing Seatbelt In Car

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Police Fine British Prime Minister For Not Wearing Seat Belt In Car

The British Police have fined Prime Minister Rishi Sunak for not wearing a seatbelt in the back of a moving car while on a trip to northern England.

Sunak, who recorded an Instagram video on Thursday, was seen turning in his seat to talk to the camera without a seatbelt on, a video that has now been deleted from the social media site.

The PM’s office at Downing Street said the incident was a “brief error of judgment”, but Lancashire constabulary announced they were fining Sunak for the infraction, The Guardian UK says.

The force said: “You will be aware that a video has been circulating on social media showing an individual failing to wear a seatbelt while a passenger in a moving car in Lancashire.

“After looking into this matter, we have today issued a 42-year-old man from London with a conditional offer of fixed penalty.”

Reacting, a spokesperson for Sunak said: “The prime minister fully accepts this was a mistake and has apologised. He will of course comply with the fixed penalty.”

A fixed penalty means Sunak can pay a fine to avoid a court hearing.

The police did not disclose how much they had fined the prime minister, but according to the government’s safety campaign, any driver or passenger not wearing a seatbelt is breaking the law and is liable to be fined up to £500 if the case goes to court, according to The Guardian UK.

Sunak’s transportation habits were already a talking point in the United Kingdom before the incident, a report by AFP says.

 READ  ALSO: Rishi Sunak Becomes UK’s New Prime Minister

His political rivals have taken aim at his use of a private jet to make multiple short flights in recent days.

This is not the first time Sunak has been slapped with a police fine.

He was fined while serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer for attending a Downing Street party in June 2020 that violated the government’s rules on social distancing, according to an AFP report.

The latest fine makes Sunak the second Conservative prime minister to receive a police fine in less than 12 months. The Metropolitan police, in 2020, issued a fixed-penalty notice to Boris Johnson for attending a party during lockdown. Sunak was fined for attending the same event as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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World’s Oldest Nun Dies At 118

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World's Oldest Nun Does At 118

French nun Sister André who was the world’s oldest known person died at age 118 in the southern French city of Toulon, the city’s mayor Hubert Falco said on Wednesday.

Born in the southern French town of Ales on Feb. 11, 1904, as Lucile Randon, Sister André was listed as the oldest person alive by the Gerontology Research Group in April 2022.

The Frenchwoman worked as a home teacher in her youth and did not enter a religious community until she was in her early 40s.
Most recently, Sister André was confined to a wheelchair, and for several years she could no longer see properly.

READ ALSO: Eight Shot At Crowded Martin Luther King Day Block Party

She was an honorary citizen of Toulon, where she lived in a retirement home for several years.
Falco praised her as incredibly modern and a nun with a big heart.

Guinness World Records said Lucile, who took the name of Sister André in 1944, was the second-oldest French person and the second-oldest European person ever recorded.
More recently, Sister André received the record for the oldest COVID-19 survivor after an infection in 2021.

“It’s difficult to fathom that someone born before the patenting of plastic, zips or even bras were alive well into the 21st century, and robust enough to beat COVID-19’’, the Guinness World Records editor, Craig Glenday said in a statement.

“It’s been an honour to record her story in the pages of the Guinness World Records book, and she will live on in history as the fourth oldest person ever authenticated.’’

With her death, Maria Branyas Morera, who lived in Spain, assumed the title of the world’s oldest person at age 115.

 

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Eight Shot At Crowded Martin Luther King Day Block Party

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Eight Shot At Crowded Martin Luther King Day Block Party

Eight people were shot at a block party packed with more than 1,000 people celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Fort Pierce, Florida, Monday, police said.

All eight of those shot were adults and they were ferried to the hospital for treatment, including one person in critical condition, St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office Chief Deputy Brian Hester said during a news conference.

Six people, including a baby, were killed in a ‘massacre’ that is likely gang-related, California sheriff’s office says.

At least four others were injured as people ran for safety, the sheriff’s office said. One of those injured was a juvenile who was hurt as people rushed to flee the park where the event was being held, Hester said.

“As the shots rang out, people were just running in all directions,” Hester said. “There were people laying behind cars, laying behind anything they could lay behind. It was kind of hard to tell who was a victim and who was just hiding at that point.”

The shooting began at around 5:20 p.m. in Ilous Ellis Park, he said, where the community had gathered for an afternoon car show, dance performances, live DJ and kids activities to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an event flyer shows.

In a video taken by a witness, attendees are seen dancing by their cars and enjoying the music when what sounds like gunfire begins to resonate over the song. People in the crowd start to rush away from the noise, some ducking behind cars or grabbing children’s hands and running across the street.

READ ALSO: A Philosopher’s Spiritual Journey And Bertrand Russell’s Influence

The incident marks the 30th mass shooting in the country this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

So far this year, the US is averaging about two mass shootings per day.

Two sheriff’s deputies who were stationed in the park ran toward the scene and provided aid to those injured, Hester said. Several witnesses also helped to render aid and drive people to the hospital, he added.

The sheriff’s office has not named any suspects in the shooting, but investigators were following up on several leads from witnesses and community members Monday night.

Investigators preliminarily believe the gunfire involved multiple shooters and resulted from “a disagreement of some sort between two parties,” Hester said.

“So many innocent people that were injured or hurt were not part of the disagreement,” he added.

Survivors of mass shootings are left with lifelong wounds — and mounting bills

“It’s really unfortunate and it’s sad that during a celebration of someone who represented peace and equality, a disagreement results in a use of guns and violence,” Hester said.

He estimated as many as 40 sheriff’s office personnel were working the case Monday night as they processed the scene, spoke to victims at the hospital and followed up on leads.

Investigators are asking anyone with information about the shooting to contact authorities or submit anonymous tips through CrimeStoppers. The sheriff’s department is handling the case because the Ilous Ellis Park is a St. Lucie County park.

Fort Pierce is a coastal city about an hour’s drive north of West Palm Beach.

. CNN

 

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