The 47-year-old man was cleared of the rape record related to the famous author thanks to the TV series adaptation

A man convicted of raping best-selling author Alice Sebold has been vindicated after a producer working on an adaptation of her memoir discovered inconsistencies in the story.

Anthony Broadwater, 61, served 16 years in prison for wrongdoing. Broadwater said: “I have been crying tears of joy and relief for the past few days. “I’m so elated, the cold can’t even keep me cold.”

Sebold, known for bestselling books Lovely bones, was attacked near Syracuse University in 1981, she said. She outlined the encounter in her memoirs Lucky.

Tim Mucciante, who owns a production company called Red Emblem Films, was hired to produce the book into a show but became suspicious when the script was too different from the book.

“I started walking around and trying to figure out what really happened here,” Mucciante said.

He stopped working on the project and hired a private detective. From there, he was joined by a lawyer. Broadwater was found guilty by two key pieces of evidence – Sebold identified him from the witness stand and by hair analysis, which has come to be seen as junk science in recent years.

Attorney David Hammond said: “Sprinkle some petty science into a faulty identity, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.

In LuckySebold wrote that she saw a Negro man on the street a few months after she was raped and that she was definitely her attacker. She went to the police and an officer said it could be Broadwater. The author did not identify him in which squad because “the expression in his eyes told me that if we were alone, without a wall, he would call my name and then kill me. ” However, she identified him in court.

Broadwater said the sentence has severely affected his life and job prospects, not to mention his relationships with family and friends. Sebold has yet to respond publicly to Broadwater’s pardon.