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From:
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Subject
Date:
IVOtes from
Or. LISa ROC
Monday, February 1, 2021 1:40:40 PM
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Dr. Rocchio has not treated any victims of JE or been involved in any JE litigation
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Has not spoken publicly regardingJE or anything related to his case
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Forensic and clinical psychologist
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Independent group psychotherapy practice for over 20 years; in addition to providing
psychotherapy, also has done legal consultation; forensic evaluations; expert testimony in
both civil and criminal matters
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Most legal work involved some type of traumatic stress; in criminal arena, done battered
women homicide cases; sometimes asked to opine on ways that violence in relationship
might have impacted someone's behavior at time of crime (e.g., coercion)
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In civil space, have evaluated numerous victims of sex abuse, typically by people in authority
positions; both plaintiff and defense
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Has done some Title IX work for colleges consulting with both college attorneys and defense
attorneys
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Involved in American Psychological Association and Rhode Island Psychological Association
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Treat clients for anxiety, depression, grief; also treats adults abused as kids; do work for
PTSD first responders; workers comp cases
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Doctorate at URI; clinical internship at Yale; post-doctorally worked in RI;
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Clinical supervisor and instructor at Brown University school of medicine providing training
for psychology residents
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Recently testified in criminal trial in Massachusetts last year; only testified twice (only
transcript for Mass. case; prior one was in rural courtroom that was not transcribed, about
20 years ago); has also been deposed
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Child sexual abuse — grooming: expertise with victims; in many forensic reports, particularly
in civil arena, explain and describe grooming and offer examples of grooming process and
how perpetrators target someone with prior vulnerabilities and exploit slowly overtime to
build trust and attachment; someone could have a lot of prior vulnerabilities and might draw
conclusion that current difficulties as adult are substantially related to child sex abuse;
nature of betrayal and attachments
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Delayed reporting: often common for number of reasons; sometimes people don't
conceptualize relationship as abusive, may feel loved, may not understand being abused or
exploited, may be shame or guilt; especially now, people aware that reporting is fraught with
pain and hassle for victim; afraid won't be believed and personal life will be on display;
sometimes too traumatized and think can't go through with it; number of factors that
contribute to when report; if someone has had multiple experiences of not being supported
by people who are supposed to take care of them, then why would they believe that
reaching out to someone would be helpful for them if they even realize that they are in need
of help
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Trauma bonding: not phrase Dr. Rocchio uses; use the word attachment instead of bonding
but is same concept
o In case testified about intimate partner violence, explained that intimate partner
violence is relationship where primary dynamic is one of coercive control and power
maintained by acts of sexual, physical, psychological abuse; abusive interactions
interspersed with neutral and positive interactions, which function to maintain the
connection and increase dependency and increase power and control of perpetrator
o in intimate partner violence and child sexual abuse, great deal of dependency, even
love and affection; use psychological tools (e.g., disassociation, denial) to try to block
it/push away
o to develop and grow kids need physical attention and contact, someone to think they
are special; if perpetrator exploits that and gives child what need, children are
resilient; creates trauma bond and interdependency
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When someone is underage, child sexual abuse; can involve forcible rape but more typically
one of coercion and attachment; have worked with rape survivors who are victims of more
forcible attack as well as ongoing abuse
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Complex trauma is repeated exploitation/abuse/violence/acts of omission and commission
during developmentally vulnerable period of child's life; separate from PTSD (e.g., single
incident rape); has experience in both
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Incremental disclosure is very common; know memory is not video tape; whatever details
are most salient and relevant to victim tend to be ones that get encoded, and then what gets
moved into storage; details may blur together, but basic concept of what happened in most
cases is remembered
o Extraneous details often are not; would not expect traumatic memory to always be
presented in same way with same detail each time; look for generally consistent
detail
o Incremental disclosure as start to reveal memories; sometimes become more
comfortable and sometimes sparks more memories; psychological and memory
process; know from research on memory of cases where people can have entire
episodes of life and childhood that don't recall; people can have memories of things
that did not happen but much less common
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Experience with teenage child sexual abuse in forensic space; both boy and girl victims
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Clinically have worked with people whose mothers were sexually abusive either
independently or in conjunction with fathers; don't think has worked on forensic case where
there has been a woman perpetrator of sexual abuse; literature is clear that women can be
perpetrators of abuse
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In clinical realm, if father sexually abused kid, mom who is not participating is non-offending
parent; if both involved, they are both perpetrators; involvement in facilitating is still
perpetrating behavior
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Dr. Rocchio will let AUSAs know if lE victims reach out to Dr. Rocchio to assist in civil
litigation
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Will try to find out if judge was asked to rule if testified as expert for any of her depositions
Assistant United States Attorney
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United States Attorney's Office
Southern District of New York
One St. Andrew's Plaza
New York New York 10007
Tel:
3502.001
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