The innocent black man wrongly convicted of raping The Lovely Bones author Alice Sebold in 1981 had no idea that she used the story to kickstart her literary career and has been living in 'squalor' since he got out of prison while she has made millions in book sales, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.
Anthony Broadwater, 61, was convicted of raping Sebold in 1982. He spent 16 years in prison and was released in 1998. Since then, he has lived quietly with his wife in Syracuse, New York, in a derelict apartment.
On Monday, his conviction was overturned after a producer working on a film adaptation of Lucky, Sebold's memoir about the rape, hired a private investigator and attorneys to work on an appeal.
DailyMail.com has learned how the producer, Tim Mucciante, tracked Broadwater down after being fired from the Netflix production over a disagreement on casting.
When his private investigator found Broadwater earlier this year, living in a derelict apartment in Syracuse, the town where the rape happened, he was stunned to learn that Sebold had sold over 1million copies of Lucky, and gone on to make millions more through The Lovely Bones.
'He was pretty shocked. He is living, this is not an exaggeration, a very squalid existence. Alice Sebold, based on Lucky and The Lovely Bones, is living in a very, very nice home in San Francisco.
'It is not right,' Timothy Mucciante, the producer who exposed the wrongful conviction by hiring a private investigator, told DailyMail.com on Wednesday.
Anthony Broadwater is pictured on the steps of his home this week, holding a newspaper about his exoneration, with producer Timothy Mucciante, who hired the lawyers who represented him in court after becoming suspicious of the case. Alice Sebold, right, identified him as her rapist in court in 1982, despite having picked another man in a police lineup. She has not commented yet on his exoneration
Anthony Broadwater has been living in this home in Syracuse, New York, since he was released from prison in 1998. He is married but he never had children because he didn't want them to bear the stigma of his rape conviction. He did not know the crime he was wrongly convicted of was what Sebold used to kickstart her career
Alice Sebold lives in this $6million mansion in San Francisco, center, which she bought in 2007, eight years after her memoir was published
Lovely Bones author Alice Sebold, left, in 2018 and right, in 2002, after The Lovely Bones was published. She is yet to comment on the exoneration
Mucciante was working on a film adaptation of Lucky for a movie that was intended for Netflix.
He became suspicious after going through the original book and the script, and was fired from the production when he pushed back on a suggestion to cast the rapist as a white man and not a black man.
After being fired, Mucciante - who previously trained as a lawyer - said he started going through the book and the original police report and finding inconsistencies.
He said he 'couldn't sleep', so hired a private investigator to look into the conviction. He then raised money for lawyers on a GoFundMe page, and those lawyers represented Broadwater in his appeal this week.
He was pretty shocked... it is just not right. Alice Sebold lives in a very, very nice home based off Lucky. He lives a very squalid existence
He first met Broadwater at his home in Syracuse in September of this year.
'I brought a copy of the book and the screenplay and The Lovely Bones. He had very little knowledge of the book.
'In the 2000s, his wife mentioned that there was a book about it but he had no interest in reading it. It was only when I met with him in Syracuse in September [that he realized.]
'I didn't know this when I started it but now, it makes me angry. She wouldn't be who she is without Lucky.'
Broadwater told, earlier this week, how he was a 'pariah' who no one would allow in their homes. He and his wife wanted to have children but decided not to, because he didn't want the 'stigma' of their father's rape conviction to ruin their lives like it had his.
'We had a big argument sometimes about kids, and I told her I could never, ever allow kids to come into this world with a stigma on my back,' Broadwater said earlier this week.
'On my two hands, I can count the people that allowed me to grace their homes and dinners, and I don't get past 10.
'That's very traumatic to me.'
Broadwater was convicted after Sebold identified him in court as her rapist, even though she had identified a different man, standing next to him, in a police lineup months earlier. She said that the pair were 'identical' and that she had chosen the wrong man in the lineup.
The violent rape and the prosecution of it is the inspiration for her 1999 memoir Lucky, which sold over 1million copies, where she referred to him as 'Gregory Madison'.
This is the 1981 line up of black men that Alice Sebold was told to choose from. Anthony Broadwater is the second from the right, fourth along in the lineup. She picked the man next to him, who was in the fifth position, but was then told by police she had 'failed to identify the suspect'. They were convinced it was Broadwater and she later changed her identification in court, naming him as her attacker. The man in fifth position has not been named and it's unclear why he was in the lineup
Sebold wrote in Lucky how she was attacked from behind by a man in the park in Syracuse when she was a college student in 1981. She describes over several pages in graphic detail how he raped her then let her go, telling her she was a 'good girl' and apologizing for what he'd done. The book sold over 1million copies and propelled her career
Broadwater was implicated in the case after Sebold saw him in a street in Syracuse months after her rape. She thought he was her rapist taunting her, saying: 'Hey, don't I know you.' She went to the police afterwards and he was arrested.
