Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Helen White mentioned she read 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's if you happen to chased him,’” Helen White told the court. She said her husband didn't reply.

Below cross-examination, Helen White denied she had been conscious 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 conscious of a reward when the sufferer’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 instructed me he could never harm somebody 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'd have had a little extra sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I might owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother mentioned, his voice choked with emotion.

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

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

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

“How might a neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys able to such horror?” she requested, referring to media experiences of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

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

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

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg said her shopper was homosexual 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 responsible, having beforehand denied the crime.

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

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