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 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 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 prison.

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

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 as a result of actual 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 looking for gay men to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals have 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 clarify how he died.

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

White’s former wife Helen White instructed the court that her then-husband “bragged” to their children of beating homosexual men on the clifftop well-known for homosexual meetups.

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

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

Steve Johnson said 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 advised me he could by no means harm someone even in self-defense died in terror,” the brother added.

Steve Johnson stated he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

“If he had turned himself in after his violent action, I might have had a little bit more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I would owe him eternal 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 spouse Rosemarie Johnson also gave sufferer impression statements.

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

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

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

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

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. He mentioned the gravity of the murder was considerably elevated because it was motivated by the victim’s sexuality.

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg mentioned her consumer was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would find 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 enchantment that plea in the Court docket of Prison Appeals and hope he might be acquitted at trial.

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