Seventeen more former male athletes from N.C. State have joined a state lawsuit accusing the Wolfpack’s former director of sports medicine of sexual abuse disguised as medical treatment and of harassment, bringing the total number of plaintiffs to 31. The case dates back more than three years to a federal lawsuit filed by a single athlete.
The complaint submitted late last week in Wake County Superior Court broadens allegations against Robert L. Murphy Jr., describing years of misconduct that included inappropriate genital contact during massages and invasive monitoring while athletes provided urine samples for drug testing.
Of the 31 former athletes, all but two are listed as “John Doe” to preserve their anonymity.
The two named plaintiffs are former members of the men’s soccer team, including Benjamin Locke, who filed the initial complaint in August 2022. The other is one of two athletes who brought separate federal lawsuits in February and April of 2023.
The Associated Press generally does not identify individuals who allege sexual assault or abuse unless they have spoken publicly, as Locke has.
Durham-based attorney Kerry Sutton, who has represented plaintiffs in each lawsuit, filed to dismiss those pending Title IX lawsuits before moving the case to state-level jurisdiction in September. That complaint added 11 new athletes to bring the total to 14 — and now the case has more than doubled with the latest filing.
“While it is never good news to hear there are other men that have been suffering in silence due to what they experienced, I am encouraged by the bravery, vulnerability, and willingness of these men to come forward against injustice," Locke said Monday in a statement released by Sutton.
In a separate statement, Sutton said: “I hate to say it, but I expect to hear from more men in coming days who were sexually harassed or assaulted by Mr. Murphy.”
Seth Blum, a Raleigh-based attorney who has represented Murphy, didn't immediately return an email from The Associated Press on Monday. He has forcefully defended Murphy in past comments, saying he has been falsely accused and there has yet to be “one scrap of credible evidence he assaulted anyone.”
“Put simply, Robert Murphy did not do this,” Blum said in a statement after the September lawsuit.
Murphy, at N.C. State from 2012-22, is among nine defendants named individually. Others are school officials accused of negligence in oversight roles.
