Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person advised 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 heard on Monday.

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

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

“I pushed a bloke. He went over the sting,” White said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court.

White said in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to seize Johnson and forestall his fatal fall.

A coroner ruled in 2017 that Johnson “fell from the clifftop as a result of precise or threatened violence by unidentified individuals who attacked him because they perceived him to be gay.”

The coroner additionally found that gangs of men roamed numerous Sydney locations in search of gay males to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some folks had been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the brazenly homosexual man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not explain 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 doubtless be collected.

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

Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life and requested her husband if he was accountable.

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

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

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

Steve Johnson stated in his sufferer affect statement that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once instructed me he may by no means damage 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 would have had a little bit extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I would owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother stated, his voice choked with emotion.

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

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

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

“How may a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media reports of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the precise details of the homicide were not identified and that White’s accounts had diversified.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop before he died, Hatfield mentioned. He said the gravity of the homicide was considerably elevated as a result of it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg said her shopper was gay and had been concerned that his homophobic brother would find out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in court throughout a pre-trial listening to that he was responsible, having beforehand denied the crime.

His legal professionals will appeal that plea in the Court docket of Legal Appeals and hope he can be acquitted at trial.

Scott Johnson was a doctoral scholar at Australian Nationwide College and lived in Canberra. He was staying at Noone’s dad and mom’ Sydney dwelling when he died.