The U.S. Senate agreed Wednesday to ask federal prosecutors to consider criminal contempt charges against Steward Health Care CEO Ralph de la Torre over his refusal to testify about the system's bankruptcy, even after a panel of lawmakers issued a subpoena.

By voice vote, senators approved a resolution referring the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia for potential criminal prosecution.

The U.S. Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee unanimously approved the resolution last week, and the full Senate followed suit Wednesday.

Sen. Ed Markey said the move marks the first criminal contempt resolution approved by the Senate in more than 50 years.

"Over the past decade, Steward, led by its founder and CEO Dr. Ralph de la Torre, and its corporate enablers, looted hospitals across the country for profit, and got rich through their greedy schemes. Hospital systems collapsed, workers struggled to provide care, and patients suffered and died," Markey said Wednesday evening. "Dr. de la Torre and his corporate cronies abdicated their responsibility to these communities that they had promised to serve. Extracting hundreds of millions in profit, de la Torre used the suffering of people under Steward’s care to finance his luxury lifestyle, filling his garages and hangars with fancy cars and private planes, and becoming the posterchild of callous corporate greed."

The HELP Committee for months has been trying to get de la Torre to testify about the financial upheaval at Steward Health Care, which culminated in the closure of two Massachusetts hospitals and sale agreements for six others.

Through attorneys, de la Torre invoked the Fifth Amendment and alleged the committee's work was designed to frame him as a "criminal scapegoat for the systemic failures in Massachusetts' health care system." He also argued that ongoing bankruptcy proceedings prevent him from speaking publicly.

A spokesperson for de la Torre said the HELP Committee "weaponized Congress's civil and contempt procedures to punish Dr. de la Torre, and obtain his testimony by compulsion, simply because Dr. de la Torre invoked his 5th Amendment rights."

"Dr. de la Torre will not be intimidated by the Committee's threat of prosecution merely for asserting his constitutional protections," the spokesperson said. "The U.S. Constitution stands above the government to protect all Americans from precisely the kind of assault on our rights that we are witnessing here."