A former president of Continental Airlines and the current president of North American Airlines are accused of sexually harassing a woman who worked for both men over a two-year period at the Wings Club, a New York-based social organization for aviation professionals.

Alison Minton, 37, the former general manager of the Wings Club, alleges in a complaint filed with the Supreme Court of the State of New York that between April 2000 and March 2002 she was pressured to have sex, subjected to sexist and antigay comments and ultimately forced out of her job for rebuffing sexual advances and complaining about discriminatory treatment to superiors.

In addition to compensation sought for “mental anguish, pain and suffering,” Minton is suing for $45,333 in severance, bonus and retirement pay she claims is still owed to her by the Wings Club.

The defendants named in the complaint are the Wings Club, its former vice president, Phil Bakes, 57, and its former president, Dan McKinnon, 69, who owns a ranch in Lakeside and property in San Diego. McKinnon is the current president of North American Airlines, based out of JFK International Airport in New York.

McKinnon, son of Clinton D. McKinnon, a former U.S. Representative from California’s 23rd District (1949-53), once ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in California as a Republican. He has an impressive list of lifetime accomplishments and political ties, including his brother, Mike McKinnon, a conservative Democratic legislator from Corpus Christi, Texas.

In 1962, McKinnon purchased San Diego’s KSON radio station and rescued it from bankruptcy by changing its format to Country (McKinnon sold KSON in 1985). He served as chair of the Civil Aeronautics Board in the early ’80s, overseeing its shutdown on the advice of former President Ronald Reagan. Appointed by Reagan, McKinnon also oversaw implementation of airline deregulation in the ’80s. A supporter of Mayor Dick Murphy’s mayoral campaign, he authored a book of biblically inspired inspirational passages, carried out special projects for the CIA in the ’80s and is former publisher of the La Jolla Light newspaper.

Among the allegations brought forth by Minton is that McKinnon instructed her to fire one of her employees because he was gay. When Minton refused, McKinnon allegedly responded by questioning her own sexual orientation and by calling the employee her “gay boyfriend.”

“He has these very set ideas about how everybody should behave and act,” Minton told the Gay and Lesbian Times. “He used to ask a lot of questions about people and their families and their backgrounds — you know, all the kinds of things that you’re not really supposed to ask at work.”

Though Minton said she didn’t previously get any sense that McKinnon was against gays, per se, she said, “He had this very set idea of what people should be … married, have a family [and that] women really shouldn’t be working.”

Minton’s attorney, Robert W. Ottinger, noted that McKinnon had allegedly given Minton an article from the New York Times, stating that it’s possible to turn people from gay to straight.

“When I first said I wouldn’t fire the gay employee, he started barraging me with this stuff,” Minton told the Times. “He sent me the article that said gays can change and become heterosexual. Then he left an antigay T-shirt on my chair.… It said, ‘Christian American, heterosexual, pro-gun conservative. Any questions?’ Isn’t that lovely? ... He really just had such issues with this employee.…”

Though the gay employee, whom Minton declined to name, was let go about six months later for forging checks, Minton said at the time that there was no indication the employee may have had criminal intentions.

“He was having some trouble [and he] actually just disappeared on us for a while,” said Minton. “We actually managed to track him down; he was in the hospital for a while.

“He actually did a very good job at work,” Minton said of the employee. “He came back and he was doing some work for us and he was doing okay. I went on vacation and he had done something to my computer that I had asked him not to do. We tried to call him and we found out that his cell phone had been turned off. What we ended up finding out later is that he actually had attempted to steal money from us, like make some electronic transfers. So, we didn’t really get the chance to fire him; he just disappeared.

“When this all happened,” Minton continued, “McKinnon jumped all over this and me, saying, like, ‘He shouldn’t have been working there anyway.’ I said, ‘This has nothing to do with the fact that this man is gay. People do things they shouldn’t all the time.’

“I also think he couldn’t understand why, I, a woman, was having so much trouble accepting his authority. I just don’t think he could understand why I would stick up for a gay employee when I wasn’t gay. I don’t think that made sense to him.”

Speaking with the Times last week from New York, McKinnon maintained that the employee in question was fired for embezzling funds from the Wings Club and not because he was gay. “She allowed that to happen,” said McKinnon. “He just happened to be gay.... It didn’t have to do with any sexual orientation; it had to do with embezzling $45,000. She allowed him to access the checks and he wrote phony checks and the bank cashed them.”

Of Minton’s assertion that she could not have known the gay employee would go on to steal from the company at the time McKinnon allegedly asked her to fire him, McKinnon said, “That’s not true.... I’m still not sure of anything about any sexual orientation of the individual in question. She says that’s what he was. I have no idea. All I know was that … she’s responsible for the embezzlement, because she allowed access when she shouldn’t have.

“This is a long, drawn out story of an insubordinate, disgruntled employee and that’s what the issue is here,” McKinnon continued. “She’s very unhappy about that, because she thought she was the head guy of the club, and, fortunately, there’s a board of directors and a president that’s responsible for the organization. She just doesn’t like taking orders, that’s what this is all about.”

Asked about the antigay shirt allegedly left on Minton’s chair at the Wings Club, McKinnon stated, “There was no antigay shirt; let me get that clear.”

Asked about his own feelings about gays and lesbians, McKinnon responded, “I’m not a public figure; I’m not accountable to anybody about anything on this stuff.... That’s the end of that.”

Minton alleges that she complained about Mr. McKinnon’s anti-gay remarks to another board officer, Carol Hallett, who failed to take action.

“I think she was just was trying to agree with me for the moment,” said Minton, “because she didn’t want to get her hands dirty.”

In addition to the allegations against McKinnon, Phil Bakes, a former president of Continental Airlines, former Watergate prosecutor and current chief executive of a Miami-based travel agency, is accused of creating “a hostile and offensive work environment for Ms. Minton” by making repeated sexual advances toward her, beginning in the spring of 2000, in person, via e-mail and over the telephone.

Minton said she rebuffed Bakes — twice inside hotel rooms and once at her home — because he was married.

The attorney representing both Bakes and McKinnon, Rob Milman of the New York law firm Milman & Heidecker, said the fact that Minton met Bakes on more than one occasion at hotels raises questions about the veracity of her claims.

According to the complaint, Bakes offered to protect Minton’s job at the Wings Club and significantly increase her salary if she would have sexual intercourse with him. The offer was made in early February 2002 over dinner at the Muse Hotel in New York. Later that evening, in a room at the hotel, Minton asserts that she rebuffed a sexual advance by Bakes.

“When I first met him, I had no idea he was married,” Minton told the Times. “There was nothing going on with us; I was just enjoying finding out about him and talking to him and having a friendship with him.”

“The only thing I know is she was hitting on married men,” alleged McKinnon. “I didn’t think that was an appropriate thing for her to be doing.”