Mayor Paul Winfield again has asked a court to limit the volume of personal cell phone records he must make available in his former chief of staff’s sexual harassment lawsuit against him and the city.

In briefs filed this week, Winfield lawyers again slammed claims by Kenya Burks that phone records could back up her version of why her job was eliminated and help her find ways to contact witnesses relevant to her claims of a hostile work environment and retaliation over what she says was a soured consensual sexual affair.

“The records produced by C-Spire only contain the dates of the communications, telephone numbers, length of calls and size of text messages sent or received from Defendant Winfield’s cellular phone,” read part of a rebuttal to Burks’ response to an earlier motion from Winfield to reconsider a court order on June 4 to allow closed review of calls and texts from July 1, 2009, to April 18, 2011.

Such a review, without explanation from Winfield on the nature of the communications, “would be completely meaningless,” it says.

Protection of Winfield’s business and legal clients again was cited as a reason for the court to limit any inquiry into his cell phone records, as was his lawyers’ characterization of the entire search as “a fishing expedition.”

Burks’ lawyers claimed Winfield’s side has been slow to turn over records subpoenaed thus far, which include data from AT&T.

Burks is suing the city and Winfield for more than $1.5 million in the suit, active in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi before Judge David C. Bramlette III. Her suit asks for a jury trial. A case management conference by phone is set Aug. 1 before federal Magistrate John M. Roper.

The allegations also include “quid pro quo” sexual harassment, which refers to certain job benefits such as pay raises or promotions being tied to an employee giving in to unwelcome sexual advances.

Winfield has denied claims of sexual relations. In rebuttals, he and the city also denied Burks’ claims that Winfield became physically abusive with her after she tried to end the relationship and that her job was eliminated because she didn’t initially accept $9,701.59 in back overtime pay.

In a complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission four days after the city board nixed her job in a 2-0 vote with Winfield abstaining, Burks said the back pay amounted to a bribe.

The court-ordered time frame for presenting cell phone records covers a period from two days before Winfield’s public inauguration in July 2009 to the day Burks’ job was ended in April 2011.

Burks is represented by Nick Norris and Louis H. Watson Jr. of Jackson. Winfield is represented by attorneys Robert Gibbs and Vikki J. Taylor, and the city is represented by attorney Gary Friedman, all of Jackson. The first-term mayor has said the city’s defense costs will be reflected in premiums paid to its insurance carrier and that no city funds will pay Friedman directly.