DOJ-OGR-00006348.jpg

Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 435 Filed 11/11/21 Page7ofi1 and her forensic findings. Nov. 10 Tr. at 40. That said, the Defense is of course free to cross- examine Dr. Rocchio about how she evaluates her patients. The Defense also suggests that Dr. Rocchio’s experience is based on an unrepresentative sample of alleged victims because her patients self-selected seeking treatment with her. Yet the Defense does not explain why Dr. Rocchio’s experience with a large number of patients would not be applicable to the alleged victims in this case. To the extent the Defense wishes to argue that Dr. Rocchio’s experience is under-representative, that is a topic for cross-examination. Further, the Defense argues that Dr. Rocchio’s experience treating victims of sexual abuse does not make her an expert on grooming, which would require experience with perpetrators themselves. This argument overlooks the fact that, as she testified, Dr. Rocchio also relied on literature that includes studies of sexual abusers’ reported behaviors. But more importantly, the Court concludes, as other courts like the Ninth Circuit have, that extensive experience with victims can be used to study perpetrators’ process of victimization. See Halamek, 5 F.4th at 1088. That is especially so here where the crux of Dr. Rocchio’s expected testimony is the effect that grooming behaviors have on the minor, not the perpetrator’s mental state when performing the behaviors. Second, the Court finds that Dr. Rocchio’s opinions are relevant to the Government’s case against Ms. Maxwell. Two points of law bear mention here. For one, as the Second Circuit has explained, expert testimony cannot “constitute evaluations of witness credibility”—that is, expert testimony is inadmissible if it ““comment[s] directly, under the guise of expert opinion, on the credibility of trial testimony from” specific fact witnesses. Nimely, 414 F.3d at 398. Additionally, if the expert’s “opinion is one that the jury could reach with their own ‘common knowledge and common sense,’ no expert testimony is warranted.” Edmondson v. RCI Hosp. DOJ-OGR- 00006348