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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 443 Filed 11/12/21 Page6of24 Ghislaine Maxwell moves to exclude the proposed testimony of Lisa M. Rocchio, Ph.D., under Federal Rules of Evidence 401, 402, 403, 404, 702, 704, and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (1993). INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT The case against Ms. Maxwell is rife with problems. Recognizing them, the government retreats to a familiar tactic: The use of a “blind” expert to fill in the gaps, to explain away the inconsistencies, and to vouch of the truthfulness of the accusers. The foundation of Lisa M. Rocchio’s proposed expert testimony is so-called “grooming” behavior. But grooming is not a widely recognized or highly predictable and verifiable phenomena. To the contrary, “there is no valid method to assess whether grooming has occurred or is occurring.”! What’s more, there is nothing—not a journal article, and not a study—to validate Rocchio’s opinions on “grooming-by-proxy”—.e., that Ms. Maxwell groomed victims not for her own benefit but for that of Jeffrey Epstein. Rocchio’s opinions about “grooming” are entirely subjective—they are based on her personal experience treating a self-selected group of people who claim to have been sexually abused and who Rocchio assumes are telling the truth. There are no studies or data to back up her conclusions; they have no associated error rate; they cannot be tested, verified, or reproduced; and they “virtually impregnable for purposes of cross-examination.”” Since “expert ' Natalie Bennett & William O’Donohue, The Construct of Grooming in Child Sexual Abuse, 23 J. Child Sexual Abuse 957, 974 (2014). ? United States v. Gonyer, No. 1:12-CR-00021-JAW, 2012 WL 3043020, at *2 (D. Me. July 24, 2012). DOJ-OGR- 00006592