Source: propublica.org 7/17/26
Law professor Bennett Gershman told ProPublica that the prosecution of a man for the rape of author Alice Sebold was laced with misconduct. Then he was hired by the city and county that prosecuted the man — and reached a very different conclusion.
The upstate New York city of Syracuse seems at odds with itself when it comes to a notorious miscarriage of justice. Nearly five years ago, the district attorney of Onondaga County, William Fitzpatrick, stood up in court and excoriated his county’s decision decades earlier to prosecute Anthony Broadwater for the rape of author Alice Sebold. With the DA’s support, the conviction was thrown out. Today, the same county government and that of its main city, Syracuse, continue to fight a lawsuit filed by Broadwater that seeks financial damages for the years he lost behind bars.
The conflicts, it seems, aren’t simply between criminal authorities, who view Broadwater as a wronged man, and civil authorities, who defend the original prosecution. A key expert for the city and county seems to be experiencing an internal conflict of his own — or, at minimum, a dramatic change in opinion.
Syracuse’s paid expert, a veteran Pace University law professor named Bennett Gershman, filed a report in the civil suit in December 2025 asserting that the city’s prosecutors “did not engage in misconduct” in the Broadwater case. But a little over a year before that, Gershman told me that prosecutors had “manufactured a case” against Broadwater, calling it “the most heinous kind of prosecutorial misconduct — when the prosecutor is creating guilt.” He went on to say, “‘Misconduct’ is kind of glib in this case. … It’s so much worse than plain misconduct. This is tyranny.”
In an interview for this article, Gershman said he changed his mind after delving deeper into the case. “The facts,” he said, are more “complex” and “nuanced” than how he initially understood them.
Lawyers on both sides of the Broadwater litigation declined to comment for this article.
Certainly, lawyers retain paid experts of every stripe for all sorts of actions. But it’s rare to see an expert take a position in court after expressing a different one to a reporter. “It’s not unethical to change your mind,” said Stephen Gillers, an emeritus professor and ethics expert at New York University School of Law. But, he added, Gershman’s reversal is “an embarrassment and it’s going to undermine his credibility going forward.” A potential jury in the case might wonder what he truly believes.
Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School, who specializes in criminal law and ethics, offered a similar view. She called it “odd” that Gershman would “be willing to give such a strongly worded comment and then take a position as an expert on behalf of one of the parties. That in itself is problematic. It raises concerns.” She said she views the role of being a commentator for a news story as different from being an …