Netflix scraps film version of Alice Sebold book after rape conviction overturned

A screen adaptation of the memoir Lucky is no longer in production after the man who was found guilty of the crime at the centre of the story is exonerated

Plans to adapt Alice Sebold's memoir Lucky, about her rape as an 18-year-old, have been dropped, according to Variety.

The news comes after the rape conviction at the heart of the 1999 memoir was overturned last week. Anthony Broadwater had spent 16 years in prison after being convicted of the crime in 1982, based largely on Sebold's identification of him as her rapist on the witness stand, and on microscopic hair analysis by an expert tying him to the crime. The US Department of Justice now rejects such analysis, and Broadwater was cleared last Monday of raping Sebold. I'm not going to sully this proceeding by saying, I'm sorry.' That doesn't cut it," said the Onondaga county district attorney, William Fitzpatrick. This should never have happened."