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 homosexual hate crime, a court docket 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 at 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 said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was performed in court docket.

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

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed numerous Sydney places in the hunt for gay men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been additionally robbed.

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

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

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

Helen White said she read a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s demise 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 should you chased him,’” Helen White told the courtroom. She mentioned her husband didn't reply.

Beneath 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 mentioned she only became aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson mentioned in his victim impression statement that, “With a vicious push, Mr. White took Scott and he vanished.”

“This man (Scott Johnson) who as soon as advised me he might by no means damage someone 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 bit of more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to safety, I would owe him everlasting gratitude,” the brother said, his voice choked with emotion.

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

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary police failure to research 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 studies of homosexual beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield mentioned the exact details of the homicide weren't recognized and that White’s accounts had various.

White had met Johnson in a nearby bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped naked at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield said. 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 consumer was gay and had been involved that his homophobic brother would discover out.

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

His legal professionals will enchantment that plea within the Court docket of Criminal Appeals and hope he will be acquitted at trial.

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