NC State lawsuit update: More former athletes join sex abuse suit vs. ex-trainer

The alleged victim count in a sexual abuse lawsuit against ex-NC State trainer Robert Murphy Jr. more than doubled when 17 former Wolfpack male athletes joined as plaintiffs. An amended complaint filed last week includes a total of 31 plaintiffs, which attorney Kerry Sutton said comprises athletes from eight different sports teams. Three former athletes filed individual lawsuits in 2022 and 2023, and the case grew in September when 11 alleged victims filed a fourth suit.

The lawsuit alleges that Murphy over multiple years engaged in acts of misconduct involving improper touching of the genitals during massages and intrusive observation while collecting urine samples during drug tests.

Murphy, who worked at NC State from 2012-22 and was promoted to director of sports medicine in 2018, is one of nine defendants named in the lawsuit. The others are school officials, including former athletic director Debbie Yow, who are accused of negligence. The plaintiffs claim that Yow and other administrators were aware of Murphy’s behavior but did not investigate nor prevent him from working with male athletes.

“The health and safety of students and student-athletes is paramount to NC State Athletics and the university,” a university spokesperson said Monday to ESPN. “Sexual misconduct of any kind is unacceptable, prohibited by NC State’s policies, and in direct opposition to the mission, culture and standards of the university. NC State is reviewing the lawsuit and determining appropriate next steps.”

NC State placed Murphy on administrative leave and fired him in 2022, the same year in which former men’s soccer player Benjamin Locke filed the initial lawsuit. That complaint stated that former men’s soccer coach Kelly Findley told a senior athletic department official in 2016 that Murphy was engaging in conduct consistent with “grooming” behavior. The September lawsuit added that Findley raised concerns four years prior in 2012 and requested that Murphy be removed from his role as the team’s trainer.

Murphy was reassigned from his role in 2013 but resumed working with the men’s soccer team in 2014. Athletic department officials allegedly told Murphy between 2016 and 2021 to refrain from treating male athletes and to distance himself from the men’s soccer team, but the lawsuit states they did not enforce those requests when he failed to comply.

“A culture of fear in the NCSU athletics department led to this tragic set of circumstances,” Sutton said in September. “Athletes afraid of losing their scholarship or their spot on the team, trainers afraid of reporting their boss, coaches afraid of getting involved, directors afraid of harming NCSU’s reputation. Murphy took advantage of those fears to get away with abusing what we believe may turn out to be hundreds of former Wolfpack athletes.”