The Vermejo Park Ranch boss pushes religion on ranch hands, a former wildlife manager on the Northern New Mexico ranch says in a lawsuit claiming he was wrongfully fired.

James K. Baker's complaint stops short of charging religious discrimination, but it says his 34-year career at the ranch went sour because he didn't attend Bible classes run by new general manager Mark Kossler.

Named as defendant are Kossler and Turner Enterprises Inc., an Atlanta-based firm owned by Ted Turner, the media mogul, sports team owner, sailor, hunter, environmentalist and outspoken religious skeptic.

Turner, 71, bought the 578,000 acres — mostly in Colfax County but spilling into Colorado — in 1996 from Pennzoil. Part of the old Lucien Maxwell land grant, it's the largest privately owned, contiguous tract of land in the United States.

The Vermejo Park Ranch, along with Turner's 358,000-acre Almendaris and 155,000-acre Ladder ranches, both near Truth or Consequences, plus a dozen other ranches in five other states, bring his land holdings to nearly 2 million acres — making him the largest landowner in the United States.

Turner has been praised as an environmentalist for preserving threatened wildlife habitats and reintroducing endangered animals on his ranches, but criticized for continuing to produce natural gas from coal seams beneath the Vermejo Park Ranch and developing some of the nation's biggest bison herds there and elsewhere to provide for meat for his chain of restaurants, Ted's Montana Grill.

Turner has publicly described himself as an agnostic or atheist and once said "Christianity is a religion for losers." In his 2008 memoir, Call Me Ted, he wrote that when his third wife, 1991-2001, actress Jane Fonda, announced she had become a born-again Christian, he was frustrated that she hadn't discussed it with him beforehand.

Years on the job

Sherry Tippett, a former assistant city attorney in Santa Fe, now in private practice in Albuquerque, submitted the lawsuit on behalf of Baker on Tuesday in the 7th Judicial District Court, covering Taos, Union and Colfax counties. Baker and his wife, Rita Malinowski, now live in Key West, Fla., where he works for a butterfly conservatory.

Kossler declined comment on the case and referred a reporter to Atlanta lawyer Jeffrey Mokotoff, who represents both Turner Enterprises and Kossler. But Mokotoff said he had not yet seen the complaint and could not comment on it.

According to the complaint, Baker had worked and lived at the ranch since 1975, continued as wildlife manager after Turner Enterprises bought it and got regular merit raises and good job appraisals. But the complaint says that changed in 2007 when Kossler, previously manager of Turner's Flying D ranch near Bozeman, Mont., was hired as manager of the Vermejo Park Ranch.

Soon after taking over, Kossler began posting notices for religious services on ranch bulletin boards and placards at the entry to the ranch lodge, the complaint says. Included with the complaint is a monthly schedule with Bible study every Tuesday afternoon along with social events, exercise and a "ranch meeting"; and a Valentine's Day party invitation quoting John 3:16: "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

"Almost immediately after his hiring, Defendant Kossler commenced preferential hiring and firing practices, based on attendance (or lack thereof) at the workplace religious services he had created and instituted," says the complaint.

Baker, who did not attend the Bible studies, "began to fear that his job was in jeopardy," says the complaint. It says that in his first two years as general manager, Kossler got rid of 60 percent of the 22 employees who lived on the ranch. "None of these employees who were fired or forced to resign attended Defendant Kossler's workplace religious services," says the complaint. "All of their replacements do."

Firing followed plea

In 2008, the complaint says, Kossler tried to get the New Mexico Game and Fish Department to prosecute a guide whom Kossler supervised, but the case was dismissed by a Colfax County magistrate. People familiar with the case said it involved a hunting guide tracking down and shooting, after dark, an elk wounded earlier in the day by a guest hunter.

"The reputations of (Baker) and all employees he supervised were tarnished by this malicious prosecution ... in retaliation for (Baker's) reporting complaints about Defendant Kossler's religious services at the workplace," the complaint says. It says Baker had told Kossler that employees and guests had told him the religious services made them "uncomfortable."

The complaint says Kossler also criticized Baker's job performance; accused him of providing an inaccurate elk count; told other employees they didn't need to keep him informed; insulted him; asked him when he was going to retire even though he was seven years from retirement age; and hired a new assistant wildlife manager without his input.

Last year, Baker wrote to Turner and his son Beauregard "Beau" Turner, both of whom he had known personally for 16 years, explaining what was happening at the ranch and that he was being forced to resign, the complaint says. Three weeks later, it says, Kossler fired Baker, locked him out of his office and gave him 30 days to vacate the ranch house he had occupied with his family for 34 years.

According to people familiar with the ranch, Ted Turner has rarely visited in recent years, although Fonda, owner of the Forked Lightning Ranch near Pecos, continued to go even after she and Turner divorced. Last year, a new lodge with dozens of rooms opened to accommodate even more hunters who pay thousands of dollars to kill trophy elk and other game on the property.

Turner Enterprises initially contested Baker's application for unemployment benefits, then dropped its opposition, although a hearing officer for the state Department of Workforce Solutions found Baker was not entitled to benefits because he had resigned voluntarily in a written letter.

The complaint seeks reinstatement to his previous job and unspecified compensatory, punitive and exemplary damages for breach of contract, violation of covenants of good faith and fair dealings, wrongful termination by constructive discharge and negligent supervision.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.