Alice Sebold Apologizes to Man wrongly convicted of raping her: what you need to know

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Alice Sebold, the best selling author of the memoir "Lucky" and the novel "The lovely bones" apologized publicly on Tuesday to a man who was wrongly convicted of raping her in 1982 after she had identified him in court as her attacker.

Anthony Broadwater was arrested and convicted, spending 16 years in prison, before being released in 1998 and was forced to register as a sex offender.

A statement from Mr Broadwater, released via his lawyers, said he was "relieved that she has apologised".

In Ms Sebold's apology statement, she said: "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".

In her memoir Lucky, she described being raped and later telling police she had seen a black man in the street who she believed was her attacker. The publisher of "Lucky" said Tuesday that it would stop distributing the book.