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Sydney man admits pushing homosexual American off a cliff in 1988


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Sydney man admits pushing gay American off a cliff in 1988

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — A person 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 homosexual hate crime, a courtroom 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 death 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 prison.

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

White said in the interview he lied when he had earlier informed police that he had tried to grab Johnson and prevent his fatal fall.

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

The coroner additionally discovered that gangs of men roamed varied Sydney locations looking for homosexual men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some folks have been also robbed.

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

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

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

Helen White stated she learn a newspaper report in 2008 about Johnson’s loss of life and requested 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 case you chased him,’” Helen White instructed 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 solely turned conscious of a reward when the sufferer’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020.

Steve Johnson mentioned in his victim affect 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 harm 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 motion, I'd have had a bit more sympathy. If he had grasped Scott’s hand and pulled him to security, I would owe him everlasting 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 spouse Rosemarie Johnson additionally gave victim influence statements.

Rosemarie Johnson described the preliminary 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 neighborhood fail so spectacularly that they created boys capable of such horror?” she asked, referring to media studies of gay beatings in Sydney being described as a sport.

Prosecutor Brett Hatfield said the precise particulars of the homicide weren't known and that White’s accounts had diversified.

White had met Johnson in a close-by bar in suburban Manly and Johnson had stripped bare at the clifftop earlier than he died, Hatfield stated. He mentioned 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 mentioned her consumer was homosexual 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 beforehand denied the crime.

His attorneys will attraction that plea within the Courtroom of Legal Appeals and hope he might be acquitted at trial.

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

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