Ex-NC State athletes allege sexual abuse in suit

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Fourteen erstwhile NC State antheral athletes person filed a civilian suit successful authorities tribunal alleging intersexual maltreatment nether the guise of attraction and harassment by the Wolfpack's erstwhile manager of sports medicine, expanding a lawsuit that began with a national suit from a azygous jock 3 years ago.

The suit filed Wednesday evening successful Wake County Superior Court alleges years of misconduct by Robert Murphy Jr., including improper touching of the genitals during massages and intrusive reflection portion collecting urine samples during cause testing.

Murphy, who was astatine NC State from 2012 to 2022, is among the 9 defendants named individually. The others are schoolhouse officials accused of negligence successful their oversight roles successful preventing maltreatment oregon adequately responding to concerns raised to them astir Murphy's conduct.

Twelve athletes are "John Doe" plaintiffs to support anonymity, portion 2 erstwhile men's shot players are named. One is Benjamin Locke, who filed the archetypal ailment successful August 2022. Two different athletes had followed with their ain national lawsuits successful February and April 2023. The Associated Press typically doesn't place those who accidental they person been sexually assaulted oregon abused unless the idiosyncratic has spoken publicly, which Locke has done.

Durham-based lawyer Kerry Sutton, who has represented the plaintiffs successful the erstwhile and caller lawsuits, filed to disregard those pending Title IX lawsuits earlier moving the lawsuit to state-level jurisdiction -- though present with 11 further plaintiffs.

The caller suit outlines akin allegations successful presumption of Murphy's behaviour and the school's response, including that concerns astir Murphy's behaviour reached erstwhile diversion manager Debbie Yow and different elder diversion officials but thing substantive was done to forestall misconduct oregon Murphy continuing to enactment with athletes.

"These 14 athletes person travel guardant unneurotic hoping to promote others abused by Rob Murphy to spot it wasn't conscionable them, they did thing wrong, and NCSU should person protected them," Sutton said successful a statement. "A civilization of fearfulness successful the NCSU athletics section led to this tragic acceptable of circumstances. Athletes acrophobic of losing their assistance oregon their spot connected the team, trainers acrophobic of reporting their boss, coaches acrophobic of getting involved, directors acrophobic of harming NCSU's reputation. Murphy took vantage of those fears to get distant with abusing what we judge whitethorn crook retired to beryllium hundreds of erstwhile Wolfpack athletes."

Jared Hammett, a Raleigh-based lawyer moving with Murphy successful the earlier cases, didn't instantly instrumentality messages from the AP requesting remark Thursday. An lawyer who antecedently worked with Murphy said successful 2022 that Murphy offered "appropriate" aesculapian procedures but "nothing that was ever of a intersexual nature."

NC State didn't instantly respond to a petition for comment. Yow declined to comment, deferring to the school, successful a substance connection to the AP connected Thursday morning.