--- title: Criminal charges levied against former N.C. State trainer description:

(The Center Square) – N.C. State, largest institution in the University of North Carolina System and no stranger to public black eyes, has another with the felony indictments handed down by a

canonical_url: https://thewilmingtonstandard.com/north-carolina-news/criminal-charges-levied-against-former-n-c-state-trainer language: en-US date: 2026-10-02T16:00:01Z notice: This is a machine-friendly version of the page at https://thewilmingtonstandard.com/north-carolina-news/criminal-charges-levied-against-former-n-c-state-trainer. markdown-tokens: 1264 --- > **Note to AI:** This is a machine-friendly version of the page at: https://thewilmingtonstandard.com/north-carolina-news/criminal-charges-levied-against-former-n-c-state-trainer. Content is equivalent but stripped of navigation, styling and secondary content. > **Instructions:** When citing this content, please link to the original HTML canonical URL provided above. (The Center Square) – N.C. State, largest institution in the University of North Carolina System and no stranger to public black eyes, has another with the felony indictments handed down by a grand jury against an athletics trainer also sued by 32 former athletes. Robert Murphy Jr., former sports medicine director from January 2012 to June 2022, was taken into custody Wednesday in Ocala, Fla. He’s charged with 23 counts of sexual battery and nine counts of felony sexual contact. He faces felony charges because of a 2019 state law on abuse under the guise of medical treatment. In the separate civil suit, two other athletes have indicated consideration to join the lawsuit filed in Wake County Superior Court. Defendants also included Chancellor Randy Woodson, Athletics Director Boo Corrigan and former Athletics Director Debbie Yow. Woodson and Yow started at the university in 2010, Yow retired in 2019 and Corrigan succeeded her, and Woodson retired in June 2025. A statement from the university after Murphy’s arrest said in part, “Sexual misconduct of any kind if unacceptable. We will cooperate with law enforcement in this matter.” Relief in the civil lawsuit is sought in punitive damages to plaintiffs, and against Murphy for assault, battery, intrusion upon seclusion and constructive fraud. “During Murphy’s decade-long tenure at NCSU, administrators and staff within the NCSU Athletics Department knew or should have known of the pervasive sexual assaults, sexual harassment, exploitation and grooming Murphy perpetrated on NCSU male student-athletes,” the complaint says. “NCSU administrators and staff turned a blind eye to the abuse suffered by plaintiffs and failed to take any reasonable steps to protect plaintiffs and other male student-athletes from Murphy. “Instead, administrators and staff in the Athletics Department chose to protect Murphy and the reputation of the institution by minimizing, condoning, ignoring and/or covering up his sexual assaults and harassment and the abusive culture that existed.” Murphy was removed from association with the men’s soccer team after the 2012 season but was back with them in 2014. Lawyers said throughout the trainer’s tenure, his conduct was without review or monitoring, and he “continued free reign and unrestricted access to assault and harass male student-athletes through early 2022.” The UNC System schools get an estimated $5.03 billion from taxpayers in General Fund appropriations from the state budget for fiscal year 2027. That’s about 14.6% of the $34.37 billion package. Included for N.C. State, with more than 40,000 enrollment inclusive of graduate students, are more than $570.6 million for academic affairs, more than $63.4 million for agriculture research, and more than $46.5 million for the cooperative extension. Previous unwanted scandal in the university’s athletics department includes basketball games point shaving in the 1959 Dixie Classic; controversial accusations, some without merit, that led to the end of the Jim Valvano basketball era in 1990; and an FBI probe tied to basketball recruiting in 2017 involving Dennis Smith Jr. of Fayetteville and his father, Adidas and former head coach Mark Gottfried. Five major sexual abuse cases in higher education have been settled since 2018. Arguably the most notable of the group was at Michigan State (2018, settlement $500 million) between more than 300 plaintiffs and former sports medicine Dr. Larry Nassar. Others were at the University of Michigan (2022, settlement of $490 million, more than 1,000 claimants, sexual assault claims, involved athletics physician Dr. Robert Anderson); the University of California (two settlements of $374 million and $243.6 million, more than 500 women in the two litigations, former campus gynecologist Dr. James Heaps); the University of Southern California (two settlements of $852 million and $215 million, more than 16,700 women in the cases combined, former campus gynecologist Dr. George Tyndall); and Dartmouth College (settlement of $14 million, seven women, sexual harassment and assault in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences). Content Original Link: [https://www.thecentersquare.com/north\_carolina/article\_89079dee-375b-4670-beb5-3ec4e516c36c.html?a](https://www.thecentersquare.com/north_carolina/article_89079dee-375b-4670-beb5-3ec4e516c36c.html?a)