Jew-Hating Nicholas Amor Sentenced to Nearly Two Years Imprisonment
- Rochelle Direnfeld and Mark Sandler
- Apr 21
- 5 min read
Last Thursday, April 16, Nicholas Vincent Amor was sentenced in a Windsor court for two crimes:
Public Incitement of hatred against the Jewish community likely to lead to a breach of the peace; and
Possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose.
In March, he entered guilty pleas to these offences. The deeply disturbing facts admitted by the accused were contained in our earlier report on this case. Several of those facts are reproduced below:
His posts described Zionists and/or Jews as baby killers and pedophiles. He compared Jews to subhuman disease-ridden vermin, including one post where he warned the public that “ZIONISTS ARE LIKE RATS AND TICKS HAD BABIES THAT CARRY RABIES AND BUBONIC PLAGUE 110 PERCENT ROTTED INFECTED SHIT SKUM GOYIM THAT MUST BE CLEANSED WITH FIRE.”
He encouraged others to engage in the violent targeting of Jews. In one post, he said "Kill zionists and have a great day". In another, he said “Kill pedophiles and end Zionism! Daily reminder.” In one post, he told people to "take to the streets and actively target Zionist entities throughout North American before Palestine and its Semetic (sic) people are fully decimated.”
In another video, the accused showed his latest project of constructing what he stated were Molotov cocktails, comprised of isopropyl alcohol, an explosive substance, in glass mason jars with cloth wicks in them. These were later found in his residence, underpinning the weapons dangerous charge.
Prior to sentencing, ALCCA, as we have done in several cases, assembled a joint community impact statement on its own behalf and on behalf of B’nai Brith Canada, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs and the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation. The Windsor-Essex Jewish Federation and Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre filed separate community impact statements.
In the court’s reasons for sentence, it adopted and quoted extensively from the community impact statements. The passages quoted from ALCCA’s statement included the following:
Most distressing to the Jewish community was the confirmation that this violent rhetoric was accompanied by real-world preparation. Mr. Amor publicly displayed his construction of Molotov cocktails in a video, and these devices were later seized from his residence following a warranted search, forming the basis of a weapons dangerous charge. This discovery transformed fear into a concrete reality: the threats were not merely words but were backed by the means to carry them out.
...
It is now well understood that hate speech radicalizes the impressionable and emboldens armchair extremists to act out. It also motivates those who already hate to commit crimes and participate in terror. These are not hypothetical fears on the part of the Jewish community. Many Jewish community members regard it as inevitable that we will have events such as took place in Boulder, Colorado, Manchester, England and most recently Bondi Beach, directed against Jews in Canada. Mr. Amor’s crimes contribute to that feeling of inevitability, despair and fear.
The court described Amor’s conduct as “vile” and “disgusting” and emphasized the danger of indiscriminately holding Jewish Canadians collectively responsible for the actions of the State of Israel, an important point also made by ALCCA in our community impact statement and in the IHRA Canadian Handbook, published by the federal government.
This case confirms that a hatemonger is not immunized from criminal liability for incitement of hatred against Jews when he demonizes all Zionists and urges others to destroy them. This case explicitly makes the connection between antizionism and antisemitism. It also reinforces the dangers associated with extremist hate speech. The court underscored this point when it addressed the accused directly:
These were not just words. You had the necessary means to inflict damage, to seriously harm people, to kill people, and based on your expression... sir, Jewish people in particular.
The size of Amor’s social media audience, numbered in the several thousands, further emphasizes that his hate-filled content was likely to produce violent adherents.
The police and the prosecutor should be commended for their professionalism in investigating and prosecuting Amor. The court ultimately sentenced him to a term of two years less a day imprisonment. (The “less a day” signifies that Amor will serve his sentence in a reformatory (a provincial prison) rather than a federal penitentiary.)
The court also imposed a three-year term of probation to follow Amor’s prison sentence.
The conditions of probation include:
do not attend within 50 metres of any synagogue, Jewish school, Yeshiva, Jewish cemetery, Jewish community centre, or Jewish community organization;
do not attend any rally, protest, or event in person or virtually concerning Palestine, Israel, the Jewish community, or the Middle East;
do not possess any weapons as defined by the Criminal Code, for example, a BB gun, pellet gun, firearm, imitation firearm, crossbow or prohibited weapon, ammunition or explosive substance, or anything designed to be used or intended for use to cause death or injury to threaten or intimidate any person;
actively participate in all assessment, counselling, rehabilitation programs as directed by the probation officer, and complete them to the satisfaction of the probation officer, including but not limited to mental health, radicalization and or cultural sensitivity:
do not access any social media or online messaging platform, including but not limited to Facebook, Instagram, X, formerly known as Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, Telegram, Bit Chute, Reddit, or Discord, except in the presence of your probation officer.
Amor was also placed on a firearms prohibition for 10 years and was ordered to provide a sample of his DNA to the DNA Databank.
While no order was made in relation to the online posts, the prosecutor advised the court that Amor had been cooperative with the Windsor police in volunteering to remove his hateful online posts and had shut down his Instagram account. Police were in the process of working with Facebook to also shut down Amor’s Facebook account.
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About the Authors
Mark Sandler, LL.B., LL.D. (honoris causa), ALCCA’s Chair, is widely recognized as one of Canada’s leading criminal lawyers and pro bono advocates. He has been involved in combatting antisemitism for over 40 years. He has lectured extensively on legal remedies to combat hate and has promoted respectful Muslim-Jewish, Sikh-Jewish and Black-Jewish dialogues. He has appeared before Parliamentary committees and in the Supreme Court of Canada on multiple occasions on issues relating to antisemitism and hate activities. He is a former member of the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, a three-time elected Bencher of the Law Society of Ontario, and recipient of the criminal profession’s highest honour, the G. Arthur Martin Medal, for his contributions to the administration of criminal justice.
Rochelle Direnfeld is ALCCA’s Senior Criminal Counsel. She was called to the Ontario bar in 1990 and has served in the Ontario Public Service for over 32 years as an assistant crown attorney, deputy crown attorney, crown counsel, and finally as Deputy Director for Toronto Crown Attorneys in the Criminal Law Division of the Ministry of the Attorney General. Rochelle retired from public service at the end of 2023. During her career, she prosecuted a wide variety of Criminal Code cases in the Ontario Court of Justice, Superior Court of Justice, and the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Rochelle is also the Chair of the Canadian Criminal Law Working Group, a national initiative bringing together leading criminal lawyers to strengthen the legal response to antisemitic hate crimes and support victims across Canada.
She has also been selected to join the Toronto Police Service Board’s Jewish Community Advisory Table, an initiative aimed at strengthening dialogue and collaboration between the Jewish community and the Toronto Police Service on issues of community safety and policing.