Alice Sebold Lawsuit: $5.5M Settlement and Immunity Ruling

Anthony Broadwater’s lawsuit against New York State ended in a $5.5 million wrongful-imprisonment settlement signed in March 2023, and a second lawsuit — his federal civil rights case against Onondaga County, the City of Syracuse, and the former prosecutor who handled his 1982 trial — remains active in the Northern District of New York as of mid-2026.¹² Broadwater spent nearly 17 years in prison for the 1981 rape of author Alice Sebold before a New York judge vacated his conviction in November 2021.

The $5.5 Million New York State Settlement

Broadwater filed his wrongful-imprisonment claim in the New York State Court of Claims after his exoneration. Serious settlement talks followed public comments by New York Attorney General Letitia James in October 2022. A Court of Claims judge gave verbal approval to the proposed settlement in February 2023, and lawyers for Broadwater and the Attorney General’s office signed the final agreement during the week of March 20, 2023. The payout was $5.5 million.³¹

Broadwater’s legal team on the state claim included attorneys Earl Ward, Andrew G. Celli Jr., and Max Selver of ECBAWM, along with Syracuse attorneys David Hammond and Melissa Swartz, who had also worked to overturn the conviction.⁴

The state settlement resolved only Broadwater’s claim against New York. It did not touch the local officials, the county, or the city, who are the defendants in a separate federal case.

The Federal Civil Rights Lawsuit

In 2022, Broadwater filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. The case is Broadwater v. The County of Onondaga et al., No. 5:22-cv-1241. The named defendants are:

The County of Onondaga
The City of Syracuse
Gail Uebelhoer, the former assistant district attorney who prosecuted the 1982 case, sued in her individual capacity
The estate of George Lorenz, the Syracuse police detective involved in the original investigation
John Does 1 through 5

The complaint brings federal claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for denial of a fair trial and malicious prosecution, alleging violations of the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Broadwater also asserts state-law malicious prosecution claims against the county and city.²

The heart of the claim against Uebelhoer is what she allegedly said to Sebold after Sebold failed to pick Broadwater out of a police lineup. According to the complaint and Sebold’s own memoir, Sebold chose a different man in the lineup, and Uebelhoer then told her that Broadwater had deliberately planted a look-alike to trick her — an explanation that effectively steered Sebold toward identifying Broadwater at trial.⁵

The Prosecutorial Immunity Ruling

The most consequential decision in the federal case came on March 11, 2024. Chief U.S. District Judge Brenda K. Sannes denied Uebelhoer’s motion to dismiss on prosecutorial immunity grounds.⁶

Prosecutors typically enjoy absolute immunity from civil suit for conduct tied to their advocacy role. Judge Sannes applied what courts call a “functional approach”: immunity depends on what the prosecutor was actually doing, not her title. The judge found that Uebelhoer’s post-lineup conversation with Sebold looked more like investigative work than advocacy. At that point in the case there was no evidence beyond Sebold’s initial identification, and the record gave no indication the conversation was preparation for grand jury or trial. That put the alleged conduct outside the shield of absolute immunity, at least at the motion-to-dismiss stage.²

Uebelhoer’s attorneys filed a general denial of the allegations.⁶

Where the Federal Case Stands

The federal lawsuit is moving toward summary judgment. On June 1, 2026, Onondaga County and Uebelhoer filed a request to seal the identity of the victim in their summary judgment papers. Judge Sannes set a briefing schedule with responses due by late June 2026. No trial date has been set, and no settlement discussions have been reported.⁷

Why the Underlying Conviction Was Vacated

The lawsuits rest on the collapse of the 1982 conviction. On November 22, 2021, New York State Supreme Court Justice Gordon Cuffy vacated Broadwater’s conviction at the request of Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick.⁸ The DA’s review found the case had been built on two pieces of evidence that could no longer support a conviction:

Sebold’s identification of Broadwater, which began with her failure to pick him in the lineup and was then reshaped by the prosecutor’s suggestion that Broadwater had planted a look-alike. At trial, she pointed to him in a courtroom where he was the only Black man at the defense table.⁵
Microscopic hair comparison testimony, a technique the U.S. Department of Justice has since labeled “junk science.” The FBI has acknowledged that examiners in many such cases “made statements that went beyond the limits of science.”⁹

The rape kit had been destroyed before DNA testing became available, so no biological evidence remained.⁹ Broadwater had been sentenced to 8 to 25 years, served 16 years and seven months, and was denied parole at least five times because he refused to admit guilt.¹⁰ At the exoneration hearing, DA Fitzpatrick told the court, “I’m not going to sully this proceeding by saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ That doesn’t cut it. This should never have happened.”⁴

Alice Sebold herself is not a defendant in either lawsuit. Eight days after the exoneration, she posted a public apology on Medium: “I am truly sorry to Anthony Broadwater and I deeply regret what you have been through,” adding that she would “continue to struggle with the role that I unwittingly played within a system that sent an innocent man to jail.”¹¹

A Separate Lawsuit Over Broadwater’s Story Rights

A different set of lawsuits — sometimes confused with the wrongful-conviction cases — involved the rights to Broadwater’s story. Tim Mucciante, the film producer whose skepticism about a planned adaptation of Sebold’s memoir Lucky helped trigger the reinvestigation, had Broadwater sign a document in July 2021 that Mucciante later treated as granting him financial rights to Broadwater’s story. Filming for a documentary called “Unlucky” began in September 2021 through Red Hawk Films.¹²

The partnership fell apart. Mucciante sued Red Hawk Films in Michigan federal court in January 2024, and Broadwater sued Mucciante in February 2024 to reclaim his story rights.¹³ A federal judge ruled that Mucciante owed Red Hawk Films roughly $185,000, and when he could not pay, the court ordered the copyright and rights to the Broadwater footage sold at auction. At a February 27, 2026, auction in a Detroit suburb, Red Hawk Films director Scott Rosenbaum was the sole bidder and won the rights for $40,000. Rosenbaum agreed to resell those rights to Broadwater for the same amount, giving Broadwater control of the footage for the first time. He plans to license it to Jigsaw Productions for a two-part HBO documentary that had not aired as of mid-2026.¹²

1
The New York Times. Anthony Broadwater Alice Sebold Wrongful Conviction
2
Justia. Broadwater v. The County of Onondaga et al
3
Syracuse.com. New York to Pay Anthony Broadwater $5.5M for Wrongful Conviction in Rape of Alice Sebold
4
ECBAWM. New York State Anthony Broadwater Wrongful Conviction
5
Criminal Legal News. Lucky Exoneration Syracuse
6
Syracuse.com. Judge Refuses Immunity to Prosecutor Who Made Crucial Mistake in Alice Sebold Rape Case
7
PACER Monitor. Broadwater v. The County of Onondaga et al
8
Forensic Magazine. Conviction Overturned in 1981 Rape of Author Alice Sebold
9
Retro Report. An Overturned Conviction Magnifies Flaws in a Discredited Forensic Technique
10
The Guardian. Alice Sebold Man Wrongfully Convicted Anthony Broadwater
11
NPR. Alice Sebold Apologizes to the Man Exonerated for the Rape That Her Memoir Focused On
12
Syracuse.com. Anthony Broadwater Falsely Imprisoned for a Rape Wins Back Control of His Dramatic Story
13
Syracuse.com. HBO Making Two-Part Feature on Exoneration of Syracuse’s Anthony Broadwater in Alice Sebold’s Rape