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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document397 Filed 10/29/21 Page 30 of 84
jumble together, although the victim can remember the perpetrator and maybe some of the
locations where the abuse occurred.
Taken together, Dr. Rocchio’s expert testimony explains why victims of child sexual
abuse—and especially repeated sexual abuse—may disclose their abuse in a delayed and
incremental fashion, and why their memories may lack some level of detail when the disclosure
finally occurs.
The defendant argues that testimony about delayed disclosure is unreliable, repeating some
of the defendant’s earlier arguments about whether the testimony is “based entirely on her
treatment of a self-selected group of individuals she assumes are telling the truth” and how the
opinion lacks an error rate. (Def. Mot. 3 at 15). Here, as with her opinions on attachment and
coercion, Dr. Rocchio is testifying based on her training, clinical experience, and the academic
literature. See Exhibit B. That victims of childhood sexual abuse delay disclosure is a well-
established phenomenon the fact of which—though not the underlying psychological
explanation—is readily visible in the news. See also 2 Mod. Sci. Evid. § 19:15 (explaining that
“a large literature over the years has demonstrated that individuals frequently fail to disclose
autobiographical information in numerous different settings,” including disclosure of “episodes of
sexual abuse”).
Courts have specifically authorized experts to provide testimony on delayed disclosure.
See, e.g., United States v. Gaudet, 933 F.3d 11, 15-16 (1st Cir. 2019) (“Moreover, the government
provided expert testimony from Dr. Ann Burgess. . . in which she testified that delayed disclosures
are ‘[v]ery common’ in abuse victims and stem from the way the brain processes, stores, and recalls
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Document Details
| Filename | DOJ-OGR-00005813.jpg |
| File Size | 640.9 KB |
| OCR Confidence | 94.8% |
| Has Readable Text | Yes |
| Text Length | 1,833 characters |
| Indexed | 2026-02-03 17:03:30.880906 |