In early 2005, porn producer and actor Ashley Gasper realized that someone was bootlegging his films. Counterfeit copies of Jules Jordans Flesh Hunter 6 and Jules Jordan: Feeding Frenzy 2, among other titles, were showing up among the DVDs being returned to his distributor.

According to a recent decision issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Gasper soon learned that a Montreal firm was making illicit copies of the movies and selling them to wholesalers. The primary client of the Montreal bootlegger was a New York-based company called Direct Distributors, Inc., run by a young Israeli named Ben Zion Suky.

Open gallery view Rabbi Yoshiyahu Pinto Credit: Ilan Assayag

Suky, now a real estate developer, isnt just another businessman involved in two litigious industries. Hes also the right-hand man to a powerful Sephardic kabbalist Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto with growing influence among Israels political and business elite and in the American Jewish community.

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