Rouschop, 44, is on trial for the 2013 rape and choking of two Vanier women who prostituted themselves to feed severe crack and fentanyl addictions. Both were sex trade workers and testified as Crown witnesses, recalling horrifying accounts of being attacked and choked until they blacked out in the backseat of Rouschop’s pickup truck in an unknown industrial lot. Both women told the jury that they are now clean, one for six months, after saying they kicked the habit on their own. … I thought I was going to die 
 
 “I knew him so I didn’t think anything bad would happen,” she testified. The other woman testified that she was raped by Rouschop, a longtime client who she said suddenly lost control. It was the summer of 2013 — she doesn’t recall the date — and she said she was dope sick so she called Rouschop, 44, with the hope of getting a trick so she could buy either crack or fentanyl. She originally told police that she was wearing a jacket, but told court this week that she wasn’t, and she testified that she was wearing pants, the ones Rouschop allegedly pulled down, only to later say that she was wearing a skirt or a dress with stockings. But she was firm under cross-examination, and said that while she doesn’t remember those details, she definitely remembers that she was raped and that she felt she was going to die in that backseat, somewhere in the city’s west end. The jury — six women, six men — has heard that Ottawa police detectives investigating the unsolved 2013 homicide of Amy Paul, a 27-year-old Vanier sex-trade worker, went to great lengths to secure formal complaints, and later their testimony, from the sex-trade workers. Rouschop was charged with rape and choking less than 24 hours after Ottawa police announced a $50,000 reward in the unsolved Paul homicide investigation in December 2013. Both women in this case testified that they didn’t initially want to come forward but did so after police strongly urged them to, court has heard.  The lawyer defending an alleged choker-rapist told a jury on Thursday that Jacques Rouschop couldn’t physically have committed the vicious sex crimes he’s accused of because his hernia “makes it too painful to have sex from behind, his stomach is too large and his penis is way, way too small.” 
 
 The first defence witness, a registered nurse, testified that she volunteered to take Rouschop’s measurements. The nurse who measured Rouschop’s penis at the Innes Road jail is expected to be the first defence witness to take the stand Thursday. The rape-and-choking trial has been overshadowed by the Amy Paul investigation because Rouschop is not just any accused. In a rare move, Ottawa police publicly linked Rouschop to the Amy Paul case in December 2013, announcing that the rape charges now before the courts were yielded specifically from the homicide investigation. (Police also executed a search warrant at his home with the hopes of finding Paul’s pants, shoes and cell phone.) The charges — two counts of aggravated sexual assault and choking — that Rouschop is on trial for now were yielded from the investigation into Paul’s killing, which remains unsolved. He also says he didn’t choke or rape the two women now testifying against him. gdimmock@postmedia.com 
 
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– An accused rapist in Canada is defending himself with the argument that he is physically incapable of the crime. Specifically, says the lawyer for Jacques Rouschop, "his stomach is too large and his penis is way, way too small," reports the Ottawa Citizen. The 44-year-old is accused of raping and choking two sex workers in 2013 in his pickup truck. But his first defense witness was a registered nurse who took the suspect's measurements in jail and testified that Rouschop's penis was about 2 inches when erect. The 5-foot-6 Rouschop also weighed about 400 pounds at the time of the alleged attacks and has an umbilical hernia about the size of a baseball, reports the National Post. To buttress his case, jurors were shown photographs of his naked body. “Due to his weight and his appearance, he will be the first to tell you that he has had a lot of trouble attracting members of the opposite sex, and that getting a woman’s attention, let alone having sex, was not something that happened very often for him," says his lawyer. She acknowledges that Rouschop, a career thief, did indeed visit sex workers, but she maintains that he could not have raped a woman from behind, as one of the sex workers testified. The allegations stem from a police investigation into the 2013 murder of another sex worker, and while police have publicly linked Rouschop to that crime, they have not charged him, reports the Ottawa Sun. “He believes he is the subject of a witch hunt,” says his attorney. (This study defined "normal" penis length.)