JUSTICE, FINALLY

Aussie Sentenced to 12 Years After Admitting He Pushed Gay American Off Cliff

Scott White admitted he pushed American mathematician Scott Johnson off a cliff in Sydney in 1988 after denying it for years.

A Sydney man who was arrested in 2020 for fatally pushing American mathematician Scott Johnson of a cliff near Manly’s North Head on the coast off Sydney some 32 years ago has been sentenced to more than a decade in jail after admitting he did it on purpose. Scott Phillip White, 51, was handed a maximum of 12 years and seven months’ imprisonment after issuing an “emphatic” guilty plea at a pre-trial hearing earlier this year. Charged with Johnson’s murder in May 2020, a tape played at his sentencing hearing on Monday revealed that White had confessed to the killing during his arrest. “I pushed a bloke,” he said, according to the tape. “He went over the edge.” His ex-wife also told the court that White had “often bragged about bashing poofters.” Though White had maintained for years that the 27-year-old mathematician jumped off the 60-foot cliff, he recently reversed course, saying in January that he was “guilty, guilty... I am guilty.”