She said she only became aware of a reward when the victim’s brother, Steve Johnson, doubled the sum in 2020. Outside court, Boston resident Steve Johnson thanked prosecutors and the judicial system for ensuring White was sent to prison. “We didn’t get compensation for Scott this week but what Scott got was dignity,” the older sibling told reporters. Younger sister Rebecca Johnson said she was satisfied with the sentence. “Today I feel like we’ve had answers and we’ve had justice, and that’s for our brother and that’s for gay men who were bashed or killed in that era,” she said. White had a record of violent crime before and after the murder but had not committed any offense since 2008. “It should be understood that the court is not sentencing a violent and reckless young man for a targeted attack on a gay man,” Wilson said. “Because of the lapse of time, the offender is no longer the same angry young man who raised his fists to another on the edge of a cliff. Neither is the court imposing a sentence for a crime motivated by hatred for a particular sector of society. White’s lawyers have appealed his conviction and hope he will be acquitted of the murder charge in a jury trial.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.” She said a sentence for the same crime today would be “much higher.” The evidence is too slender to support that,” Wilson added.