Author Alice Sebold apologizes to man cleared in 1981 rape

Author Alice Sebold publicly apologized Tuesday to the man who was exonerated last week in the 1981 rape that was the basis for her memoir 'Lucky' and said she was struggling with the role she played 'within a system that sent an innocent man to jail.'

Anthony Broadwater, 61, was convicted in 1982 of raping Sebold when she was a student at Syracuse University. He served 16 years in prison. His conviction was overturned Nov. 22 after prosecutors reexamined the case and determined there were serious flaws in his arrest and trial.

In a statement released to The Associated Press and later posted on Medium, Sebold, the author of the novels "The Lovely Bones" and "The Almost Moon," wrote to Broadwater that she was truly sorry for what he'd been through.

"I am sorry most of all for the fact that the life you could have led was unjustly robbed from you, and I know that no apology can change what happened to you and never will," she wrote.

She wrote that "as a traumatized 18-year-old rape victim, I chose to put my faith in the American legal system. My goal in 1982 was justice -- not to perpetuate injustice. And certainly not to forever, and irreparably, alter a young man's life by the very crime that had altered mine."