Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man 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 courtroom heard on Monday.

Scott White, 51, appeared within 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 death at the base of a North Head cliff was initially dismissed by police as suicide.

White will probably 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 mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and stop his fatal fall.

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

The coroner also found that gangs of males roamed varied Sydney places searching for homosexual males to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals were also robbed.

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

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

White’s former spouse Helen White instructed the court docket that her then-husband “bragged” to their kids of beating homosexual males at the clifftop well-known for gay 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 docket. She mentioned her husband did not reply.

Below cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been aware 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 turned aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson mentioned in his victim impact statement 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 hurt 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 action, I'd have had a little bit extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I would owe him eternal gratitude,” the brother said, his voice choked with emotion.

Scott Johnson’s sisters Terry and Rebecca Johnson, his accomplice Michael Noone and Steve Johnson’s wife Rosemarie Johnson also gave victim influence statements.

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

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

“How could a community fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she requested, referring to media experiences of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the exact particulars of the homicide weren't recognized and that White’s accounts had diverse.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked on the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. He mentioned 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 stated her client was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

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

His legal professionals will appeal that plea within the Courtroom of Criminal Appeals and hope he will be acquitted at trial.

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