The president and CEO of Toyota Motor North America, accused last week in a sexual harassment lawsuit, is leaving the post, the automaker said Tuesday. To replace him, Toyota named the first American president of its U.S. subsidiary.

Sayaka Kobayashi, an employee of Toyota Motor North America, appears in New York's Central Park in this 2006 photo provided by her lawyer. Kobayashi has filed a lawsuit accusing the company's president and chief executive officer, Hideaki Otaka, of unwanted sexual advances toward her when she worked as his personal assistant. [AP]

Hideaki Otaka, 65, who had been scheduled to leave his post in June, has voluntarily left earlier. He said his staying on went against the company's interests, but said he was innocent of the charges.

Jim Press, now president of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Toyota's U.S. sales unit, will replace Otaka as president.

Otaka was accused in a $190 million sexual harassment lawsuit filed last week in New York. In the lawsuit, Sayaka Kobayashi accused him of harassing her when she worked as his personal assistant, making repeated unwanted sexual advances after she began working for him last summer. She said the conduct continued until winter, when she was involuntarily transferred out of the job.

Press, 59, joined Toyota Motor Sales in 1970, and worked in advertising, customer services, marketing, product planning and distribution. He has served as president of Toyota Motor Sales since June 2005 and is a managing officer of Toyota in Japan.

Toyota Motor Corp.'s U.S. unit also named Yuki Funo, 59, now chairman of Toyota Motor Sales, as the new chairman and chief executive of Toyota Motor North America, which oversees the company's manufacturing and sales operations and 31,500 employees in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

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