Australian man sentenced to 9 years in prison for gay American’s 1988 manslaughter

By RICK RYCROFT and ROD McGUIRK
Associated Press

SYDNEY (AP) — An Australian man who admitted killing a gay American by punching him off a cliff top in Sydney in 1988 has been sentenced to nine years in prison. Scott Phillip White had pleaded guilty in the New South Wales state Supreme Court to Los Angeles-born Scott Johnson’s manslaughter. White had pleaded guilty last year to the then-27-year-old’s murder and had been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison. But he changed his mind and had the murder conviction overturned on appeal. In sentencing on Thursday, Justice Robert Beech-Jones said he could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the homicide was a “gay hate crime.”