Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person instructed police he killed American mathematician Scott Johnson in 1988 by pushing the 27-year-old off a Sydney cliff in what prosecutors describe as a homosexual hate crime, a court docket heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within the New South Wales state Supreme Court for a sentencing hearing after he pleaded responsible in January to the homicide of the Los Angeles-born Canberra resident, whose demise at the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White shall be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a possible sentence of life in jail.

“I pushed a bloke. He went over the edge,” White mentioned in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in courtroom.

White mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and prevent his deadly fall.

A coroner dominated in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the clifftop on account of precise or threatened violence by unidentified individuals who attacked him because they perceived him to be homosexual.”

The coroner also found that gangs of men roamed numerous Sydney places in search of homosexual men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some folks were also robbed.

A coroner had dominated in 1989 that the overtly gay man had taken his personal life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not clarify how he died.

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained stress for additional investigation and offered his own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will seemingly be collected.

White’s former spouse Helen White informed the court docket that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating homosexual males on the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

Helen White said she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise and asked her husband if he was accountable.

“It’s not my fault,” Scott White allegedly replied. “The dumb (expletive) ran off the cliff.”

“I said, ‘It is in the event you chased him,’” Helen White informed the court. She stated her husband didn't reply.

Beneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious of a AU$1 million reward for info on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She said she only grew to become aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson mentioned in his victim impression assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as informed me he may never harm someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent action, I'd have had slightly more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I'd owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother said, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his companion Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer impact statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary police failure to research Scott Johnson’s demise as “indefensible and inhumane.”

Rebecca Johnson, a youthful sister, said the police report of suicide “made no sense.”

“How could a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys able to such horror?” she asked, referring to media stories of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise particulars of the homicide were not known and that White’s accounts had various.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. He said the gravity of the homicide was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg mentioned her client was homosexual and had been concerned that his homophobic brother would discover out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in courtroom throughout a pre-trial listening to that he was guilty, having previously denied the crime.

His legal professionals will enchantment that plea in the Courtroom of Prison Appeals and hope he might be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral pupil at Australian National College and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s mother and father’ Sydney home when he died.