Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A man advised 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 docket for a sentencing listening to after he pleaded guilty 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 might be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday. He faces a possible sentence of life in jail.

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

White mentioned in the interview he lied when he had earlier advised police that he had tried to seize Johnson and stop his fatal fall.

A coroner dominated 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 gay.”

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed various Sydney places seeking homosexual men to assault, ensuing within the deaths of some victims. Some individuals have been also robbed.

A coroner had ruled in 1989 that the overtly homosexual man had taken his personal life, whereas 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 own reward of 1 million Australian dollars ($704,000) for data. White was charged in 2020 and police say the reward will probably be collected.

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

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

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

Steve Johnson said in his sufferer influence assertion that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

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

Steve Johnson said he appreciated White’s guilty plea.

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

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

Rebecca Johnson, a younger sister, said 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 reviews of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield stated the precise details of the homicide were not recognized and that White’s accounts had diverse.

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

White’s lawyer Belinda Rigg said her shopper was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

In January, White yelled repeatedly in courtroom during a pre-trial hearing that he was guilty, having previously denied the crime.

His legal professionals will attraction that plea within the Court of Felony Appeals and hope he might be acquitted at trial.

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