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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 397 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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