RALEIGH, N.C. — Former NC State University athletic trainer Robert Murphy Jr. was extradited to Raleigh on Thursday to face sexual abuse-related charges in Wake County, according to local reporting on the court transfer.
Murphy, 55, was arrested weeks earlier in Marion County, Florida. He faces nine counts of felony sexual contact under the pretext of medical treatment and 23 misdemeanor sexual battery counts.
His bond is set at $2 million, and he was expected in court Friday afternoon. Murphy was criminally indicted in Wake County on allegations of sexual contact under the pretext of medical treatment.
Murphy was NC State’s Director of Sports Medicine from January 2012 to June 2022, when he resigned. He had been suspended from the post in January 2022.
He was already facing allegations in a 2022 civil lawsuit brought by dozens of former Wolfpack male athletes before the criminal case advanced to the Florida arrest and Thursday extradition.
NC State University remains a major Raleigh employer and campus anchor beside neighborhoods that feed into Centennial Campus and downtown. The criminal case now sits in Wake County courts after the transfer from Florida.
District Attorney Lorrin Freeman’s 10th Judicial District prosecutes felony cases arising in Wake County, including matters that begin with out-of-state arrests and return defendants to Raleigh for bond hearings and later proceedings.
Mayor Janet Cowell’s city and NC State University sit at the center of the Wake County case map now that Murphy is back in Raleigh custody ahead of the Friday court date listed after the Thursday extradition.
