White will be sentenced by Justice Helen Wilson on Tuesday.
He faces a potential sentence of life in prison.ĪMERICAN MAN’S FATAL FALL OFF SYDNEY CLIFF IN 1988 RULED GAY HATE CRIME White said in the interview he lied when he had earlier told police that he had tried to grab Johnson and prevent his fatal fall.Ī 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.” He went over the edge,” White said in recorded police interview in 2020 that was played in court. Scott Johnson’s family, brother Steve Johnson, and, from left, sisters Terry and Rebecca, and Steve’s wife Rosemarie arrives at the Supreme Court in Sydney, Monday, May 2, 2022.
The coroner also found that gangs of men roamed various Sydney locations in search of gay men to assault, resulting in the deaths of some victims. Some people were also robbed.Ī coroner had ruled in 1989 that the openly gay man had taken his own life, while a second coroner in 2012 could not explain how he died.
