I have a hard time believing it is anything other than a cartridge related issue. When you are looking straight towards the front of the cartridge, if the cantilver is deformed only in plane/axis that's parallel to the surface of the record, you can make adjustments for that in mounting. If it's also rotated out of whack relative to azimuth, you're out of luck. Even if you can make adjustments that compensate for the problem, I'd get that catridge replaced ASAP. Records are hard to replace, cartridges are easy.
