  
**By** [Jacques Gallant **Courts and Justice Reporter**](https://www.thestar.com/users/profile/Jacques-Gallant)

A woman who made an [antisemitic threat to a Crown attorney](https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-woman-convicted-of-making-antisemitic-threat-against-crown-attorney-in-courthouse-elevator-i-froze/article_1a8adf34-4827-4ff8-ad0b-8e38cb6be5ec.html) in a Toronto courthouse elevator was sentenced to one further day in jail and probation, as the judge took into account the woman’s significant mental health issues.

“The person before me is a person who committed a hate-motivated offence, but who is profoundly unwell,” Ontario Court Justice Jason Little said last Thursday as he sentenced 42-year-old Keiosha Ross.

“Both realities are true, and neither can be ignored.”

The Crown had been seeking six months in jail and probation after Ross was convicted of uttering a threat to cause bodily harm for telling Crown attorney Marnie Goldenberg that she would cut off her “big Jewish nose” in a crowded elevator at the provincial courthouse at 10 Armoury St. in December 2024. Ross and Goldenberg were strangers to each other, and the threat was unprovoked. 

Ross, who represented herself at trial, claimed she was of “Jewish heritage” and that she meant the remark as a joke. She also apologized. 

Little, who is based in Hamilton, imposed his sentence via Zoom on Thursday, as Ross was back in jail pending a bail hearing on charges that she exposed herself twice — in the courtroom and in the hallway — [during a break at her sentencing hearing last Monday](https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/toronto-woman-thwarts-sentencing-for-threatening-prosecutor-after-allegedly-exposing-herself-in-court/article_547259e2-dd95-4983-964d-afa20d7b64bc.html).

The judge ordered the one-day sentence on top of the 12 days he credited Ross for time spent in pre-sentence custody in December 2024 when she was arrested on the threat charge before being released on bail. He also ordered 18 months of probation, including a requirement that Ross take all counselling as directed by her probation officer.

The judge said he recognized that some members of the public may view the sentence as a sign that the court is “minimizing” the seriousness of the crime or the “very real problem” of antisemitism.

“It is neither,” he said. “The sentence should not be mistaken as softness on hate crimes directed at the Jewish community or any other community.”

He said the sentence had to be proportionate to Ross’s degree of moral blameworthiness. While accepting that her threat to Goldenberg was “unquestionably antisemitic,” the judge said the evidence before him “overwhelmingly establishes” that Ross suffers from significant mental health issues.

That evidence came in the form of Ross’s own words during her two-day trial in March and again at her sentencing hearing last Monday, where she offered up a litany of conspiracy theories, claimed that she’s the queen of Jamaica, and lobbed insults at the lawyers and the judge.

She repeatedly interrupted the proceedings, including again on Thursday, prompting the judge to ask court staff to mute her on Zoom.

“The examples, unfortunately, are numerous,” Little said. “What I observed is not a person acting from a rational and settled belief system, but a person whose perception of reality is significantly distorted by mental illness.”

[Goldenberg herself became the subject of judicial ire](https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/judge-slams-veteran-prosecutor-for-angrily-telling-toronto-cop-we-protect-our-own-dangerous-driving-case-tossed/article_83dea483-c37e-44fd-a924-ea41ab118701.html) after testifying at Ross’s trial. In May, a judge concluded that Goldenberg had berated a Toronto police officer in a hallway at the Armoury Street courthouse after he provided testimony that risked hurting the Crown’s case against a man accused of hitting another officer with a motorcycle.

Ontario Court Justice Mara Greene found that Goldenberg told the police officer witness “we protect our own,” or words that conveyed that exact meaning, after the officer asked if he was supposed to lie on the stand. Greene then tossed the case. 

[https://archive.ph/jJLxC](https://archive.ph/jJLxC)

Woman gets one more day in jail, probation for antisemitic threats against Toronto Crown attorney