Syracuse, NY – There’s an untold story behind Anthony Broadwater’s remarkable exoneration in the 1981 rape of Alice Sebold, then an 18-year-old Syracuse University student who went on to become a best-selling author.
From the start, a documentary has been in the works, “Unlucky,” which promises to explore Broadwater’s life and eventual vindication in a feature-length film that will be pitched next year to major outlets like Netflix, Hulu and Amazon. It’s directed by Scott D. Rosenbaum and produced by Tony Grazia, both of Red Hawk Films.
“Unlucky” is an unapologetic play on “Lucky,” Sebold’s 1999 memoir that sold a million copies. The memoir described her role in identifying Broadwater as her attacker and sending him to prison in 1982 for 16 years. He also landed on the sex offender registry for decades more.
Broadwater, 61, became known to millions of readers worldwide as the cold-blooded rapist -- under the pseudonym Gregory Madison -- in Sebold’s haunting memoir.
A judge cleared him of the rape conviction last week – a development first reported by Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard – after current Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick sided with two defense lawyers, David Hammond and Melissa Swartz, who pointed out that Broadwater’s conviction rested solely on Sebold’s faulty identification – she picked the wrong man out of a police lineup before trial – and microscopic hair analysis, later deemed to be junk science.
Now, Sebold has apologized, called Broadwater an innocent man and her publisher has pulled “Lucky” from publication.
Alice Sebold, pictured in 2002, wrote the 1999 memoir "Lucky" about being raped as a Syracuse University student in 1981 and fighting for her attacker's conviction. (Scribner; Associated Press)Scribner; Associated Press
For months, the film “Unlucky” has been a secret project, documenting Broadwater’s journey in the hopes that he would, indeed, be exonerated. Now that he has been cleared and the world has been captivated by Broadwater’s story, the documentary’s producers have gone public with their project.
Behind everything that has happened is Timothy Mucciante, who restarted Broadwater’s quest for justice this summer after leaving a role on the TV adaptation of Sebold’s “Lucky.” He said working on the film -- which may now be shelved -- made him believe that Broadwater had been wrongly convicted of the rape.
But Mucciante’s history – and his role in the film project – hasn’t been examined until now.
This summer, Mucciante lined up a Syracuse private eye to track down Broadwater and, after hearing Broadwater’s story, decided to champion the Syracuse man’s innocence.
Almost immediately, Mucciante decided to make a documentary about what he hoped would be Broadwater’s exoneration. That’s how the film crew knew to have cameras rolling last week during Broadwater’s dramatic court appearance: they’d been filming him for some time before then.
There’s more: Mucciante himself is a repeat white-collar felon and a disbarred lawyer with three stints in prison spanning two decades, according to court records. Mucciante said, unlike Broadwater, he was guilty and deserved to be imprisoned.
In his most famous swindle from the early 1990s, Mucciante convinced people to invest in two million condoms and two million latex gloves from Britain, which were supposed to be sent to Russia to barter for chickens, which would then be sold for a profit in Saudi Arabia. The whole pitch was a fraud, and Mucciante spent 71 months in federal prison, according to court records.
But that didn’t stop him from two more white-collar fraud convictions in the 2000s that landed him in prison for years more. He was last released in 2010, federal prison records show. Those records also show that Mucciante was convicted of polygamy in Michigan state courts for what he says arose from overlapping relationships with his first and second wives. There was no additional prison time, he said.
In interviews for the documentary, Mucciante revealed that he leveled with Broadwater about his repeat felonies months ago during their first meeting.
“Anthony said that it was hard to know what it was like being a convicted felon. I did,” Mucciante told Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard later. “I know what it’s like to be a second-class citizen.”
Tim Mucciante is pictured at the Greater Syracuse Sound Stage in DeWitt on Dec. 2, 2021. Mucciante was interviewed for an upcoming documentary called "Unlucky" about the exoneration of Syracuse resident Anthony Broadwater. N. Scott Trimble | strimble@syracuse.com
Mucciante said he likes to think of what he’s doing now as a “redemption tour,” of sorts. And Mucciante stressed his own past takes nothing away from Broadwater’s innocence..
“Anthony has been marginalized and monetized,” Mucciante said on camera for the documentary. “Lots of people have made millions of dollars and Anthony doesn’t have two nickels to rub together.”
After consulting with media lawyers, Mucciante decided he couldn’t pay Broadwater before the exoneration played out, or even foot his legal fees. Instead, Mucciante welcomed people at the time to donate to a GoFundMe page to help cover Broadwater’s lawyers.
But now that he’s been exonerated, Broadwater is free to accept money for telling his story, Mucciante said. That won’t violate documentary ethics that major distributors like Netflix use to determine which projects to purchase rights to release, he added.
How much money Broadwater might make from “Unlucky” remains to be seen, Mucciante said. It’ll depend on which distributors purchase rights to the documentary, and how much money those rights are worth.
For now, Broadwater is being compensated only for travel and other related expenses related to filmmaking, Mucciante said. There’s also another GoFundMe page set up to help Broadwater make ends meet for the time being.
Anthony Broadwater, 61, wipes tears away as he describes the obstacles in his life since being convicted in the 1981 rape of Alice Sebold, then a freshman at Syracuse University who later went on to become a best-selling author. Broadwater's conviction was overturned Monday.
The documentary, with nearly unfettered access to Broadwater, promises to delve into his 40 years of suffering, from the cells of Attica to a depilated house on Syracuse’s South Side where he and his wife, Elizabeth, get by.
There’s still much work to be done on the documentary, Rosenbaum, the director, said. Will there be an interview with Syracuse’s district attorney, William Fitzpatrick, who helped clear Broadwater by agreeing to overturn a rape conviction? And, of course, will Sebold say anything beyond the open apology she penned on Medium.com?
Rosenbaum said that filming will continue in coming weeks as interviews are landed and the crew can travel into town from Connecticut and New York City.
Staff writer Douglass Dowty can be reached at ddowty@syracuse.com or 315-470-6070.