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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 443 Filed 11/12/21 Page10of 24 element of the crime charged or of a defense” because those “matters are for the trier of fact alone.” Fed R. Evid. 704(b). Rule 403 demands exclusion when the probative value of evidence is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice or misleading the jury. Fed. R. Evid. 403. And Rule 404 prohibits any witness, witness or lay, from offering evidence “of a person’s character or character trait . . . to prove that on a particular occasion the person acted in accordance with the character or trait.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(a)(1). Applying these provisions, and as elaborated below, each of Rocchio’s opinions is inadmissible. A. Opinion 1: Minor victims are often subject to a strategic pattern of behaviors, often called grooming, that can take a variety of forms and function to render the victims vulnerable to abuse, to obscure the nature of the abuse, and to build trust and attachment with their abuser. 1. Rocchio’s grooming opinions are unreliable. Rocchio’s first and most prominent proposed area of testimony concerms “grooming,” which she characterizes as “a strategic pattern of behavior[] . . . that can take a variety of forms and function to render the victims vulnerable to abuse, to obscure the nature of the abuse, and to build trust and attachment with their abuser.” Ex. 1, p 2. Rocchio continues that “[i]ndividuals with particular vulnerabilities are often targeted [through grooming] by perpetrators of sexual abuse” and that “[s]exual abuse of minors frequently occurs through the use of manipulation or coercion in the context of an established relationship that is developed over time, rather than through the use of forcible rape.” Jd. These opinions on grooming are not based “on scientific research or data.” Gonyer, 2012 WL 3043020, at *2 (granting defendant’s motion to preclude evidence from the government’s “expert on sexual predator grooming techniques in its case-in-chief in a jury trial on charges of DOJ-OGR-00006596