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 gay hate crime, a court docket heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared in the New South Wales state Supreme Courtroom for a sentencing listening to 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 will likely be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a potential sentence of life in jail.

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

White mentioned within the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to grab Johnson and prevent his deadly fall.

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of males roamed varied Sydney areas in search of gay males to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals have been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the overtly gay man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 couldn't clarify how he died.

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

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

Helen White stated she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s dying 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 mentioned, ‘It's if you chased him,’” Helen White advised the court docket. She said her husband did not reply.

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

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

“This man (Scott Johnson) who once informed me he could never damage someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s responsible plea.

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

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his associate Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave victim impact statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary police failure to analyze Scott Johnson’s loss of life as “indefensible and inhumane.”

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact details of the homicide weren't known and that White’s accounts had varied.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare on the clifftop before he died, Hatfield mentioned. He mentioned the gravity of the murder was significantly elevated as a result of it was motivated by the sufferer’s sexuality.

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

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

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

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