Expert Witness Profiler

Tag: Sexual Assault

  • Psychology Expert’s Testimony on Trauma Victims Limited

    Psychology Expert’s Testimony on Trauma Victims Limited

    Plaintiff Colleen Nix alleged that Kevin Keiner, a New Mexico State Police Officer, sexually assaulted her while she was intoxicated and asleep.

    Nix sought to introduce the testimony of both Elizabeth Thomson and Andrea Taylor. New Mexico Department of Public Safety and New Mexico State Police requested the Court to bar Thomson and Taylor from testifying.

    Law Enforcement Expert Witness

    Elizabeth Thomson is a retired law enforcement professional with more than two decades of experience. From 1999 to 2017, Thomson served as an officer with the Albuquerque Police Department (“APD”), retiring at the rank of sergeant. She held a variety of investigative and supervisory roles at APD.

    Get the full story on challenges to Elizabeth Thomson’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study.

    Psychology Expert Witness

    Andrea Brooke Taylor is a licensed clinician and retired law enforcement captain with over 20 years of experience in trauma-focused mental-health counseling. She has a Masters Degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and a Masters Degree in Forensic Psychology. She specializes in Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (“PTSD”), Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (“CPTSD”), trauma assessment, and the psychological impact of sexual violence.

    Get the full story on challenges to Andrea Taylor’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study.

    Discussion by the Court

    Elizabeth Thomson

    Thomson is qualified based on her twenty years of law enforcement experience and extensive training. For instance, she may testify regarding patterns in sexual assault cases due to her training, field experience, and six years of specialized service on a crisis intervention team. She may testify regarding police procedures based on her service as a homicide sergeant, where she developed and updated departmental policies and standard operating procedures.

    Defendants sought to limit Thomson’s testimony. First, they challenged her opinions regarding Nix’s and Keiner’s credibility as usurping the jury’s role. Specifically, they sought to preclude Thomson from testifying that Nix was truthful while Keiner was not, or from characterizing the parties’ statements as “consistent” or “inconsistent.”

    Nix contended that Thomson did not make credibility determinations but instead applied her investigative expertise to identify “consistencies and inconsistencies” in the parties’ statements. The Court is not persuaded. Even when framed in these terms, such testimony effectively invites the jury to conclude that accounts deemed “consistent” are credible, while those labeled “inconsistent” are not.

    Next, Defendants sought to preclude Thomson from testifying that the evidence is consistent with a nonconsensual sexual encounter. The Court declined to limit such testimony. Expert testimony offering “general and conditional opinions” about whether behavior aligns with patterns observed in sexual abuse cases is permissible.

    Finally, Defendants moved to preclude Thomson from testifying that Keiner was acting under “color of law” because such testimony would usurp the role of the jury. In this case, the Court found that Thomson’s proposed testimony—that Keiner was acting under “color of law” when he encountered Nix—did not usurp the jury’s fact-finding role. Jurors are unlikely to understand how police officers are trained to recognize whether they are acting under “color of law.”

    Andrea Taylor

    A. Taylor’s methodology is reliable under 702

    First, Keiner argued that Taylor’s methodology is unreliable under Rule 702. Taylor’s opinions are the product of a reliable methodology. She employed a multi-method approach to screen Nix for PTSD and CPTSD by administering seven diagnostic questionnaires and conducting two clinical interviews.

    The Court found Keiner’s arguments to the contrary unpersuasive. First, he argued that Taylor’s opinions are unreliable because she failed to use a Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale (“CAPS-5”) to diagnose Nix with PTSD “despite acknowledging CAPS-5 as the gold standard.” As discussed above, Taylor’s methodology is reliable because it is grounded in her professional experience. 

    Next, Keiner challenged Taylor’s conclusion that Nix has Complex PTSD because “Complex PTSD is not a distinct diagnosis under the DSM-5.” Taylor sufficiently explained each step of her analysis and the basis for her conclusions. The Court’s inquiry ends there.

    Keiner also argued that Taylor’s opinions are unreliable because she failed to perform any differential etiology or rule out alternative causes of Plaintiff’s PTSD symptoms. The Court disagreed. Differential etiology is simply one method of assessing causation in the medical context. Keiner’s assertion that Rule 702 “requires an expert to engage in a reasoned differential etiology” is unsupported.  Regardless, Taylor accounts for alternative causes of Nix’s symptoms and distinguishes between Nix’s baseline functioning and her post-incident decline. Taylor acknowledged Nix’s pre-existing anxiety and extensive trauma history, including childhood abuse and prior violence.

    B. Taylor’s methodology is based on sufficient facts and data under 702

    Keiner next argued that Taylor’s opinions are not based on sufficient facts or data under Rule 702.

    Taylor relied on sufficient facts and data here. She concluded, “to a reasonable degree of psychological certainty,” that the alleged sexual assault caused Nix’s PTSD and CPTSD symptoms. Taylor based that opinion on Nix’s “test results, symptom presentation, personal narrative, and trauma chronology,” and testified that her methodology was “standard” and grounded in her professional experience. The Court is satisfied that Taylor did not selectively “cherry pick” favorable facts but relied on the type of information reasonably considered by mental-health professionals conducting trauma assessments.

    Keiner claimed that Taylor improperly relied on Nix’s self-report without “independently verifying” the information through medical or therapy records, the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (“SANE”) exam, or other “objective” evidence. But the Court does not “require every expert to undertake an independent evaluation of the entire record to determine what he or she did or did not need to consider.” Taylor testified that it is “standard” to rely on self-reported symptoms to form diagnostic opinions—that is all the Court requires under 702.

    C. Portions of Taylor’s testimony are unhelpful under 702

    Finally, Keiner argued that portions of Taylor’s proposed testimony are not “helpful” under Rule 702. Specifically, Keiner challenged Taylor’s assertions that Nix was truthful in reporting the alleged assault; trauma victims “have no gain” in being untruthful; and gaps in Nix’s deposition testimony can be explained by dissociation or freezing.

    Taylor may not vouch for Nix’s truthfulness at trial. Taylor may not testify, for example, that Nix was truthful in reporting the incident or that inconsistencies in Nix’s account resulted from a trauma response. Those determinations remain within the exclusive province of the jury.  The Court also barred Taylor from opining that trauma victims “have no gain” in being untruthful—such testimony crosses the line into improper bolstering by suggesting that the jury should accept Nix’s account.

    This limitation did not preclude Taylor from testifying about the experiences and behaviors of trauma victims generally.

    Held

    • The Court granted in part and denied in part Defendants’ motion to exclude Elizabeth Thomson.
    • The Court granted in part and denied in part Defendants’ motion to exclude Andrea Taylor.

    Key Takeaway

    Expert testimony offering “general and conditional opinions” regarding patterns commonly observed in sexual-abuse victims is admissible. Taylor may testify, for example, that sexual-assault victims may experience memory lapses, dissociation, and freezing responses. Such testimony assists jury members in evaluating Nix’s testimony without telling them what to believe—an important distinction under 702.

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: Nix V. New Mexico Department Of Public Safety
    Docket Number: 1:24cv691
    Court Name: United States District Court, New Mexico
    Order Date: May 27, 2026
  • Law Enforcement Expert Was Allowed to Opine on Ride-Along Policies

    Law Enforcement Expert Was Allowed to Opine on Ride-Along Policies

    Zailey Hess sued former Hammond police officer Jamie Garcia, alleging that he sexually assaulted and harassed her during a ride-along for her criminal justice class in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses.

    Garcia filed a motion to exclude the testimony of Hess’ expert witness, Dan Kender.

    Law Enforcement Expert Witness

    Daniel R. Kender worked as a Hammond police officer for 28 years, including as a patrol officer, evidence technician, traffic crash investigator, accident reconstructionist, field training officer (including educating ride-along participants), law enforcement instructor, and police sergeant.

    Over that time, he participated in various law enforcement training. He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer information systems and a master’s degree in cybersecurity and digital forensics. Kender is an assistant professor of computer science, though he has worked privately in crash reconstruction since 2000—first for another business, and for himself since 2008.

    Get the full story on challenges to Daniel Kender’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study.

    Discussion by the Court

    Garcia asked the Court to exclude all of Kender’s prospective testimony, arguing that he (1) may not testify to a witness’ credibility, (2) isn’t needed or qualified to testify on whether Garcia’s ride-along conduct was inappropriate based on Hammond’s policies or a seatbelt’s functionality, and (3) isn’t qualified to testify on sexual grooming or the behavior of a victim of sexual assault or harassment.

    A. Opinion on the Believability of Hess’ Accusations

    Kender reviewed Hess’ recollections of their ride-alongs with Garcia and opined that her accusations appeared genuine because fabricated accounts tend to be more exaggerated, while Garcia’s recollections struck him as inconsistent.

    Garcia said that Kender lacked the requisite qualifications in psychology or human behavior to reach this opinion and added that his credibility opinion cannot help the jury.

    The latter is what prevents him from being an expert here. Qualifications aside, and those remain in doubt, an opinion witness cannot sift through the testimony of others, tell the jury whom to believe, or otherwise argue the implication of seeming inconsistencies. The jury alone performs the job of assessing the credibility of witnesses, and it needs no help. Kender acknowledged that this takes no expertise beyond the common sense of each juror.

    B. Opinions on the Propriety of Garcia’s Conduct under Hammond Police Department Ride-Along Policies and Training

    Kender’s report described the purposes and procedures of a ride-along with the Hammond Police Department. He described the ride-along program as fostering positive police-community relations and educating the public on police functions.

    Based on his prior work as a field training officer and experience leading educational ride-alongs, he opined about the training Hammond law enforcement officers receive and the objectives they acknowledge to guide their ride-alongs with members of the public.

    Jurors may have early impressions about ride-alongs, or either heard of them or even participated in one, and perhaps have early impressions about their goals for both the public and police agency; but Kender would offer something specialized to understand their dynamics, objectives, and the training that goes into making sure that police officers handle them safely. He has the credentials to speak to these issues, and his method of offering these opinions grows out of his training, his training of others, and the policies in place at the Hammond Police Department.

    Beyond this scope of testimony and the context it provides the jury, the jury truly needs no help. Nor is there anything particularly expert about anything else.

    C. Opinions on the Behavior of a Victim of Sexual Misconduct and on Sexual Grooming Behavior

    Kender sought to opine that Hess’ account of Garcia’s ride-along conduct was consistent with sexual grooming by predatory child molesters. He stated that he based this opinion on his training and experience as a police officer, his review of the record, and a 2017 article about grooming behaviors by predatory child molesters.

    Garcia argued that Kender lacked the necessary qualifications to testify about grooming behavior or a victim’s common reactions to sexual assault. He said that Kender merely read transcripts rather than interviewing or observing any witnesses, and that his opinion lacked a scientific method.

    Analysis

    Kender worked as a police officer for 28 years. His curriculum vitae reflects fairly standard training at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy and at the Northwest Indiana Law Enforcement Training Center, and it seems over the years he developed particular focuses in crash investigation, forensics (including computer forensics), and training of officers. None of this screams out expertise in sexual grooming. That said, he testified that he worked traffic part of the time, but also worked patrol involving cases of child molesting, sexual battery, and rape. He received some training on sexual grooming at the academy, and he later served as a field training officer and evidence technician when he “handled a lot more of [these] cases then.”

    While Kender hasn’t specialized professionally in sex crimes or psychology, the Court held that he may speak to patterns of sexual grooming insofar as his training and experience take him.

    Garcia also criticized Kender’s method, except that Kender outlines specific signs or dynamics of sexual grooming (something well beyond his say-so); and he thereby provided a roadmap for his application of these and his decision-making toward an opinion, and decision-making not unlike what law enforcement officers often would make in the field.

    Aspects of grooming may be intuitive to some jurors, and jurors will need no help understanding that much of the alleged behavior would be not just unprofessional but unreasonable by a police officer to commit; but other aspects about grooming or a victim’s sometimes-less-than-intuitive reactions to sexual assault will be invariably foreign to them, so this opinion about grooming will aid in their understanding of its markers and the constitutional impropriety of such behavior during a ride-along.

    Held

    The Court granted in part and denied in part Jamie Garcia’s motion to exclude Daniel Kender’s opinions.

    Key Takeaway

    Kender offered something by way of specialized knowledge to understand the objectives and training associated specifically with ride-alongs. The jury gets to decide whether Garcia’s conduct violated the Constitution with the aid of that context, but without need of more.

    For instance, jurors understand driving safety and the importance of having two hands on a steering wheel (or not). Jurors can assess whether physical contact or sexualized conversations between an officer and minor passenger (or with a sex worker) are discriminatory rather than serve any legitimate government objective.

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: Hess V. Garcia
    Docket Number: 3:21cv101
    Court Name: United States District Court, Indiana Northern
    Order Date: March 13, 2026
  • Law And Legal Expert’s Speculative Calculations of Future Earnings Excluded

    Law And Legal Expert’s Speculative Calculations of Future Earnings Excluded

    Drew Dixon alleged that the Defendant, Antonio Marquis “L.A.” Reid sexually harassed her and refused to allow her to succeed unless she acquiesced to his demand to be alone and in close proximity to her while she was employed as an A&R executive at Arista Records from 1996 to 2002.

    Dixon claimed that Antonio Reid sexually assaulted her twice in 2001.

    Dixon departed Arista in 2002, leaving the music industry to pursue a degree at the Harvard Business School.

    Defendant filed motions to preclude the testimony of Plaintiff’s expert witnesses, Michael Selverne, Mark Plotkin, and Dr. Chitra Raghavan, pursuant to Federal Rules of Evidence 702 and 403.

    Law And Legal Expert Witness

    Michael Selverne is an attorney who, for the past 39 years, has specialized in the field of executive compensation in the music industry. Over the course of his career, he has represented artists in their contract negotiations for recording and performance agreements, record executives in their negotiations of compensation packages with their employers, and music labels in their negotiations with executives.

    Get the full story on challenges to Michael Selverne’s expert opinions and testimony with an in-depth Challenge Study.

    Music Industry Expert Witness

    Mark Plotkin holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from a joint program between Case Western University and The Cleveland Institute of Music and has over two decades of diverse experience in the music industry. Plotkin is a member of the Recording Academy, co-founded Decision Desk and Wifi Music School, and is the founder and CEO of Beast Music A.I., a media platform utilized by record labels such as RCA Records and Atlantic Records. Plotkin further serves as a Professor and the Area Head of Business and Technology at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Record Music.

    Fortify your strategy by reviewing a Challenge Study detailing grounds for excluding Mark Plotkin’s expert testimony. 

    Psychology Expert Witness

    Dr. Chitra Raghavan is a licensed clinical psychologist with more than twenty years of experience. Raghavan received her doctorate in clinical and community psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and post-doctoral training at Yale University. Currently, she serves as a Professor of Psychology, Director of the Forensic Mental Health Counseling Program, and Coordinator of Victimology Studies in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

    She has previously testified as a witness for the prosecution in other cases regarding the effects of traumatic abuse and coercive control and given over 150 conference presentations and published over forty articles in various publications on subjects related to domestic violence, sex trafficking, and trauma.

    Want to know more about the challenges Chitra Raghavan has faced? Get the full details with our Challenge Study report. 

    Discussion by the Court

    Michael Selverne

    In connection with this litigation, Selverne submitted an expert report setting forth his opinions regarding Plaintiff’s lost future compensation. In rendering his opinion, Selverne reviewed Dixon’s compensation package during her time at Arista.

    While the Plaintiff was hired in 1996 as a Senior Director for a two-year term, she was promoted to the position of Vice President when one of her “designated artist” albums sold 500,000 records. Selverne opined that the improvement in her compensation package and title in such a short time span indicated that Arista viewed Plaintiff as a “budding superstar.”

    Reviewing the compensation packages of contemporaries of Plaintiff who rose to the ranks of CEOs for major music labels, Selverne concluded that, if Dixon had “continued along the trajectory she was on when she departed Arista, it is highly likely that Dixon’s earnings would have reached seven or eight figures annually. It is equally likely that Dixon would have created a joint venture with a major record company and see her fortunes rise into the nine figures.”

    Analysis

    Selverne did not purport to calculate Plaintiff’s lost earnings based on her actual compensation at the time she left Arista. Indeed, he did not purport to calculate her lost earnings at all. He did not, for example, specify how long Plaintiff would have expected to work in the industry, with reference to verifiable statistics regarding longevity in the industry or even actuarial tables reflecting life expectancy. He did not calculate the value of lost benefits.

    Selverne’s lack of methodology in reaching his opinion on future earnings loss is reflected in his failure to quantify such damages. Selverne vaguely asserted that Plaintiff suffered damages in the range of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars.

    Selverne conjectures that Plaintiff not only would have continued to have a successful career in the music industry, but that she would have reached the pinnacle of the profession to become the CEO of a major record label or otherwise enter into a lucrative joint venture agreement. The Court held that these hypothetical promotions, bonuses, and business deals lack sufficient evidentiary foundation, and thus cannot form the basis of an expert opinion.

    Mark Plotkin

    Plaintiff retained Marc Plotkin to provide an expert opinion regarding the hypothetical earnings Plaintiff would have received from her A&R commission structure had she successfully signed Kanye West and John Legend.

    Plotkin first looked to Plaintiff’s employment agreement for the relevant formula and then researched West and Legend’s first contracts with Def Jam and Columbia Records, respectively, as well as their sales data year by year to ultimately determine how many records and singles were sold across various mediums and the price per unit.

    Analysis

    Defendant objected to Plotkin’s reliance on historical data regarding record sales as the basis for his opinion. Defendant contended that it rests on the faulty assumption that West and Legend would have released the same albums while at Arista and thus earned the same revenues. 

    The Court held that these are the types of assumptions that go to the weight of the evidence, not admissibility. The use of historical data may not provide exactitude, but allows for calculations to a reasonable certainty, which is all the law requires.

    Defendant also argued that the entirety of Plotkin’s opinion is speculative, in that it is unknown whether these artists would have signed to Arista if offered the chance or that they would have been deemed Dixon’s designated artists if they had done so. Defendant misapprehended the nature of Plotkin’s inquiry. Plotkin is not purporting to offer an opinion as to whether West or Legend would have signed to Arista, or if they had whether Dixon would have been responsible for signing them. Rather, his opinions are limited to a calculation of what commissions Plaintiff would have been entitled to under the terms of employment contract in the hypothetical world where she was responsible for signing the artists while at Arista.

    Dr. Chitra Raghavan

    Raghavan opined that she “found Dixon’s reported history to be believable” because she reported a decrease in recent symptoms rather than an increase, a pattern that would be typical of malingerers; Plaintiff’s emotional and physical responses were consistent with the experiences she relayed; she was able to clearly explain the abuse fact pattern and her narratives over multiple interviews; and three objective tests indicated that she responded genuinely about her mental health.

    She further opined that Defendant “used numerous tactics of coercive control to maintain his abusive power” over Plaintiff, including physical violence, manipulation, sexual abuse, retaliation, and microregulation. Raghavan opined that the “sexual assaults and the atmosphere of coercion and hostility” that Plaintiff suffered triggered a severe episode of complex PTSD.

    Analysis

    The Court held that Raghavan’s anticipated testimony is replete with improper opinions regarding witness credibility and bolstering. Such bolstering testimony regarding the truth of the underlying factual allegations in the case is not the proper province of an expert witness.

    The Court held that Raghavan is precluded, pursuant to Rules 702 and 403, from offering testimony at trial regarding Plaintiff’s credibility, including an opinion that Plaintiff was the subject of a sexual assault by Defendant or that Defendant exercised coercive control over Plaintiff. She is also precluded from opining on the causation of Plaintiff’s conditions. Raghavan can testify, however, as to coercive control generally, as background; her diagnoses of Plaintiff’s mental health conditions and the bases for her diagnoses; and that Plaintiff’s condition is “consistent with” that of individuals who have been sexually assaulted.

    Held

    • The Court granted the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Michael Selverne.
    • The Court denied the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Mark Plotkin.
    • The Court granted in part and denied in part the Defendant’s motion to preclude the testimony of Dr. Chitra Raghavan.

    Key Takeaway:

    Where lost future earnings are at issue, an expert’s testimony should be excluded as speculative if it is based on unrealistic assumptions regarding the Plaintiff’s future employment prospects.

    Selverne’s opinion is not only of little assistance to a jury, but also rests on inherently speculative assumptions. 

    Case Details:

    Case Caption: Dixon V. Reid
    Docket Number: 1:23cv9878
    Court Name: United States District Court, New York Southern
    Order Date: August 21, 2025