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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 386 Filed 10/29/21 Page 13 of 24

“frequently occurs” are not reliable, because she does not explain how these conclusions were reached, what testing was involved, what data she considered, or how her conclusions can be verified.

This is exactly why the Court in United States v. Raymond excluded grooming testimony in a prosecution for transporting a minor across state lines with the intent of engaging in illegal sexual activity. In that case, the expert (Ken Lanning) proposed to testify that “offenders who prefer younger child victims are more likely to first ‘seduce’ the victim’s parents to gain their trust and obtain increased access to the potential victim” and that “[i]n my experience, many valid claims of child sexual molestation, especially those by compliant child victims, involve the delayed disclosures, inconsistencies, varying accounts, exaggerations, and lies often associated with false allegations.” 700 F. Supp. 2d. at 148. The Court excluded this testimony as unreliable, explaining:

Nowhere does Lanning cite an objective benchmark for these frequencies or comparisons. What is “more likely”? Fifty-one percent? How many is “many”? How few is “some”? What is the error rate for Lanning’s behavioral generalizations? Can Lanning’s opinions be tested or challenged in any objective sense? Nowhere do I see any discussion of false positives. How many cases has Lanning found where people who possess all the characteristics he describes nevertheless turn out to be innocent or where victims who behave as he describes turns out to be lying? Has he even looked for such examples? For all I can tell, that number may be more, fewer, or the same as, the thousands of cases he says that he has investigated where a defendant turned out to be guilty or where a victim turned out to be telling the truth. And are these rules of exclusion, or only of inclusion? For example, Lanning describes what the “grooming or seduction process usually consists of.” But what if a defendant fails to do one of the things that Lanning’s child molester would usually do? Can the defendant then argue to the jury that he must therefore not have been grooming a child?

Id. at 148-49 (citations and footnote omitted). This Court should apply the teachings of Raymond to this case.

Finally, Rocchio is a treatment provider of alleged victims of trauma, including victims of sexual assault. But she has no experience treating or evaluating alleged perpetrators of sexual

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