Another 17 former North Carolina State male student-athletes have joined a lawsuit alleging “sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexual exploitation” by the university's former director of sports medicine, Robert Murphy. The amended complaint, filed Friday night, brings the number of plaintiffs to 31.
The lawsuit also names senior athletic department administrators as defendants, claiming that student-athletes reported the misconduct but the defendants took no action. It accuses them of “deliberate, wanton and/or reckless” conduct “carried out with conscious and flagrant disregard and indifference to the rights and safety of others.”
The lawsuit was first filed in Wake County Superior Court in September. There is currently a separate case against the university filed with the North Carolina Industrial Commission, a state agency that has exclusive jurisdiction to try negligence cases against state public entities. That case has been stayed pending resolution of the civil case.
“The health and safety of students and student-athletes is of utmost importance to NC State Athletics and the university,” a university spokesperson said in a statement Monday. “Sexual misconduct of any kind is unacceptable, prohibited by NC State policies, and in direct opposition to the university's mission, culture, and standards. NC State is reviewing the complaint and determining appropriate next steps.”
The spokesperson said the school would have no comment beyond the statement. An attorney listed for Murphy has not responded to ESPN's request for comment.
The amended complaint accuses Murphy of misconduct during his 2012-2022 tenure at the school by using “his position of trust to sexually assault, abuse, harass, and/or groom plaintiffs as student-athletes entrusted to him for necessary medical care and treatment.”
The former student-athletes allege that Murphy inappropriately touched their groin during massage treatments or made them feel uncomfortable during “unnecessarily intrusive urine sample collection methods” during mandatory drug testing.
Ben Locke, one of the two named plaintiffs, said he had to shower in front of Murphy less than 24 hours after surgery under the pretense that Murphy would help wrap the player's bandages and make sure they didn't get wet. Locke said he did not feel qualified to question Murphy, given his sports medicine role.
The complaint also alleges that the athletes discussed Murphy's “tendency to enter locker room showers, observe male student-athletes while they showered, and look at their genitals.” The plaintiffs say the behavior was so pervasive that it became known as the “Rob Murphy Special” and shared a “joke” that said: “If you had a headache, [Murphy] I was probably going to touch his genitals. One plaintiff complained of back pain, which Murphy treated with a groin massage, the lawsuit alleges.
The plaintiffs say they first reported their complaints to men's soccer head coach Kelly Findley in 2012, who allegedly reported them to athletic department administrators. They say Murphy was reassigned to other teams but resumed his work with the football team in 2014.
Kerry Sutton, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, said student-athletes from eight different sports teams, all men, have so far appeared in the lawsuit and that she “hopes[s] “In the coming days we will hear from more men who were sexually harassed or assaulted by Mr. Murphy.”
