KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri prison guard now faces a third lawsuit accusing him of sexually assaulting female inmates at a prison in the western Missouri town of Chillicothe.

All three lawsuits naming Edward Bearden have been filed over the past five weeks in federal court in Kansas City, including a suit filed Monday. The lawsuits say that the Missouri Department of Corrections knew or should have known about the assaults.

Bearden has not been criminally charged. His job status wasn’t immediately clear. Messages seeking comment from state officials on Monday were not immediately returned. A lawyer in the Missouri attorney general’s office who represents Bearden did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

The latest lawsuit accuses Bearden of fondling and assaulting an inmate several times starting in October 2015.