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 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 dying on 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 performed in court.

White stated in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and forestall his deadly fall.

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney locations searching for homosexual men to assault, resulting within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were additionally robbed.

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

His Boston-based brother Steve Johnson maintained pressure for additional investigation and offered his personal 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 that her then-husband “bragged” to their youngsters of beating homosexual men at the clifftop well-known for gay meetups.

Helen White mentioned she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s death and asked her husband if he was responsible.

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

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

Underneath cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware of a AU$1 million reward for information on Johnson’s homicide when she reported her former husband to police in 2019. She stated she only 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 impact assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as told me he could by no means harm somebody even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson mentioned he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent motion, I would have had slightly more 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 companion Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave victim influence statements.

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

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

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

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the exact details of the murder weren't identified and that White’s accounts had different.

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

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

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

His lawyers will attraction that plea in the Court docket of Criminal Appeals and hope he will probably be acquitted at trial.

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