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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 386 Filed 10/29/21 Page 12 of 24

Sept. 22, 2010) (finding expert’s opinion unreliable because the expert testified “that when her
clinical patients tell her they have been subjected to sexual abuse, she unequivocally believes
them”). Rocchio’s testimony thus runs the significant “risk of being the ipse dixit of the expert
against which the Supreme Court has warned.” Gonyer, 2012 WL 3043020, at *3 (citing Gen.
Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 146 (1999)). And because of her “inability to cite an error rate
for false positives,” her “testimony [is] virtually impregnable for purposes of cross-
examination.” Id. at *2 (citing United States v. Raymond, 700 F. Supp. 2d 142, 146-47 (D. Me.
2010) (excluding testimony about grooming in prosecution for transporting a minor across state
lines with the intent of engaging in illegal sexual activity)).

But even if Rocchio’s personal opinion about the veracity of her patients were sufficient
to render her testimony reliable, her patients are a self-selected group of individuals. Rocchio has
not and cannot point to a single study, controlled or otherwise, establishing the
representativeness of her patients as typical victims of so-called grooming behavior. Ex. 1;
E.E.O.C. v. Bloomberg L.P., Civ. No. 07–8383(LAP), 2010 WL 3466370, at *14 (S.D.N.Y. Aug.
31, 2010) (exclusion of an expert is required where the expert makes “no effort to ensure that the
materials he reviewed were representative”). Again, Rocchio’s opinions “cannot be challenged
or tested in any meaningful way.” See Schneider, 2010 WL 3734055, at *4.

There are other problems with Rocchio’s proposed testimony. She opines, for example,
that “[i]ndividuals with particular vulnerabilities are often targeted [through grooming] by
perpetrators of sexual abuse,” Ex. 1, p.2, but she doesn’t explain how often. Half the time? Two-
thirds of the time? Nor does she explain how “frequently” the “sexual abuse of minors . . . occurs
through the use of manipulation or coercion in the context of an established relationship that is
developed over time.” Id. Rocchio’s generic conclusions that grooming “often” happens or

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