Women who sued Grandview Medical Center, alleging they were sexually assaulted by a man working in the psychiatric unit, are again asking a judge to hold the Birmingham hospital in contempt.

Lawyers for the women have been trying for months to get the hospital to turn over more records related to the investigation and firing of Cornell Richards, who was a behavioral health technician at Grandview in 2022, per court records.

“Grandview has once again refused to comply and instead has made only the effort necessary to attempt to avoid contempt and sanctions and to delay these proceedings further,” James Walsh, attorney for the women wrote in a new motion for sanctions in April. “These efforts should not allow Grandview to once again escape the consequences of its actions.”

In total, four women are suing Richards and the hospital. The lawsuit argues that Grandview did not properly vet Richards for the position, allowed him to continue abusing patients despite multiple reports against him and ultimately attempted to sweep the assaults under the rug.

The lawsuit alleges that Richards, who is now 42, would find times to isolate himself with patients and force them into sexual acts. Attorneys for Richards didn’t comment for this article, but he has denied the allegations in court filings.

Over the past several months, there have been repeated orders for Grandview to hand over records and threats of sanctions. So far, Grandview has argued in court that it’s provided as many documents as the hospital can without violating confidentiality laws.

Cannon Lawley, attorney for Grandview, declined to comment for this article. But in a recent filing, the hospital said that the patients’ push for more documents “continues to proliferate the false narrative that Grandview is not complying with its discovery obligations.”

A parallel fight in criminal court

The fight over records has also played out in another case. Separate from the civil suit, Richards is also awaiting a jury trial scheduled for Oct. 6 on criminal charges.

A Jefferson County grand jury indicted Richards on four felony counts of sexual abuse, one count of rape and two counts of sodomy.

Investigators say Richards assaulted at least four psychiatric patients while on duty at the hospital between July and September of 2022.

He spent much of the last two and a half years in the Jefferson County jail.

In February, Jefferson County Judge Kechia Davis reduced Richards’ bond to $30,000 in each case.

In early April Richard got out on bail. On May 1, Judge Davis set a bond review hearing for the end of the month, writing in court records that he “may have violated the conditions of bond.”

Also at the February hearing, the judge ordered the Birmingham hospital to hand over the records tied to the investigation and firing of Richards. Judge Davis said that she was “not happy with Grandview” over the lack of provided records.

“Each time we come to court, there’s always an attorney here. And there’s always an attorney here with excuses,” Judge Davis told a lawyer for Grandview during that hearing. “Don’t go down that road.”

Court records show that the judge did not issue any sanctions against Grandview.

“Unfortunately, we are not able to comment on what records have or have not been produced,” said Ashley Mims Patterson, who is prosecuting the case, in an email to AL.com.

The case was originally set to go to trial in March, but it was postponed as lawyers continued to fight over records.

The former employee’s record

In the civil lawsuit, attorneys for the patients alleged that Grandview shouldn’t have hired Richards because of “his criminal history as a violent offender.”

In 2012, Richards was arrested in Pennsylvania and found guilty of simple assault, robbery and intimidating a witness/victim to withhold testimony, according to Pennsylvania court records.

In 2013, he was sentenced to up to four years of confinement for the crimes stemming from an incident involving his former girlfriend, the records state. When he got out of prison, Richards was ordered not to contact his ex and required to enroll in anger management classes, participate in a group treatment for domestic violence offenders, and undergo a psychological evaluation, according to court records.

“The Grandview Defendants knew or reasonably should have known through the exercise of due diligence that Richards was not competent and generally unsuitable to serve as a behavioral health technician, due to Richards’s past criminal history and the reports of Richards’s sexual misconduct that were made to Grandview’s employees,” the complaint reads.

Richards also appears to have published a book called “Pen State to State Pen” in 2021. It’s unclear if the book is fictional or autobiographical, but it follows the story of a young man with the same name who studied behavioral health in college and was unfairly accused of shooting his friend. The story follows the young man’s time in prison and romantic involvement with a female warden.

The renewed battle for sanctions

In the civil suit, Jefferson County Circuit Judge Chuck Price on March 18 granted Grandview’s request for a protective order covering any outstanding records the hospital would have to hand over. But he denied the hospital’s request to not submit more documents related to the incident and its own investigation. The hospital argued that handing over the documents would violate state and federal law.

Grandview had 21 days to provide the court-ordered documents before Judge Price would consider holding the hospital in contempt and issue sanctions, per his order.

On April 15, Walsh, the attorney for the women, said in court records that Grandview still hadn’t provided all of the required documents. He said the hospital provided three minutes of video clips for one of the women, 27 pages of documents and a log that repeats old information.

No sanctions against Grandview have appeared in the court docket.

Walsh asked Judge Price to hold Grandview accountable for its “continued and intentional failure to comply with the orders of this Court.”