Pathe Communications Sued by JDL

The Jewish Defense League sued Pathe Communications Corp. Monday for allegedly issuing a false press release in which an unauthorized individual claimed to be speaking for the JDL when he denied that Pathe’s president is anti-Semitic.

The suit, filed in Superior Court, accuses Beverly Hills-based Pathe and Chaim Mizrahi, a Los Angeles resident, of misappropriating the JDL’s name.

Parretti denied the interview ever occurred and L’Unita was ordered by an Italian court to print his denial. But the L’Unita article has made Pathe’s attempt to acquire MGM/UA Communications Co. “substantially more difficult,” according to the lawsuit.

The suit accuses Parretti and his co-president, Yoram Globus, of “manufacturing a fraudulent scheme to erase the impact” of the L’Unita article. In April, Parretti and Globus asked Mizrahi to sign a press release prepared by Pathe stating that Mizrahi was the JDL’s national chairman and that the JDL had determined that Parretti was not anti-Semitic, the suit says.

Globus said he was shocked and called the allegations “an absolute lie.”