Recent grad trying to clear his name after websites confuse him for disgraced TV figure

Apr. 28—GLOUCESTER — A 10-minute video he made for his social media marketing final exam at Endicott College three years ago has made Joseph Frontiera of Gloucester famous — for all the wrong reasons.

Now, he's hoping a judge and jury will help make things right, after an online content creator saw his video and, apparently without any effort to verify who he was, used it to illustrate a video and website post about another man with the same name — a disgraced former reality show cast member.

Frontiera, who worked throughout his college years at several popular Gloucester restaurants, posted the video on his own YouTube channel to share with his professor and classmates. He talks about his own use of social media to promote restaurants where he's worked, and warns about the pitfalls of negative or inaccurate information.

"Once you put it on social media, it's out there," Frontiera told his classmates in the video. "The internet's not going to forget it."

As Frontiera was working his way through college, on the other side of the country, another man named Joseph Frontiera was making headlines in a legal dispute with his former employer — the owner of an automotive customization shop called "Count's Kustoms," featured in the History Channel reality series "Counting Cars." That Joseph Frontiera was accused of embezzling funds from and failing to pay taxes for the Las Vegas business, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper.

In 2019, according to Nevada online court records, a criminal case against the Vegas Frontiera was resolved with a sentence of time served.

Last year, a YouTube channel called "TheThings" produced a segment called "Facts About Disgraced Ex-Counting Cars Employee Joseph Frontiera," detailing the allegations against the Nevada man, according to a defamation lawsuit filed by the Gloucester man's attorneys on Monday in Salem Superior Court.

But with virtually all traces of the Vegas Frontiera wiped off the show's website, the content creator apparently searched the internet for images — and found that class final from 2018.

TheThings video included images from the online video that Joey Frontiera published, identifying the wholesome-looking young man in the green Red Sox cap as a "sneaky fraudster" who had been accused of wrongdoing, the lawsuit says. Included in the pleadings is a still image from the Gloucester man's video, with the images of two of the reality show's stars superimposed over it.

Last spring, Frontiera's lawyers contacted the owner of TheThings, a Canadian company called Valnet Inc., which also owns some other popular YouTube channels like TheTalko, TheRichest, ScreenRant and GameRant, they say in their complaint.

The YouTube channel's lawyers took down the video and pulled the related content — but not before other internet content creators had appropriated all or some of the contents for their own videos and "slideshow"-style clickbait. Now, whenever the name Joseph Frontiera is searched online, multiple items featuring the Gloucester man's image with the allegations against the Vegas man pop up.

The Gloucester man's lawyers say in their complaint that Valnet's lawyer refused to discuss any sort of settlement for all of the potential damage to their client's career the situation has caused.

Frontiera, "as a private person, did nothing to thrust himself into any public debate," lawyers Steven Ryan and Mark Delaney wrote in their complaint, which seeks damages for defamation, invasion of privacy, and under the state's consumer protection laws.

They say Valnet "recklessly misappropriated" their client's image and portrayed him as a "liar, fraudster and embezzler."

And that, say his lawyers, almost certainly will be detrimental to his career.

"The impact of Valnet's conduct is serious for (Frontiera)," the lawyers say in their complaint. Frontiera recently graduated from Endicott, but his job search has been hindered because the first thing any potential employer will see — the first hit that shows up in a Google search for his name — are the the images linking him to the reality show.

"Many employers look no further than the top results on Google before deciding on a job candidate, and Valnet's defamatory publication has severely harmed Frontiera's job prospects," his lawyers say in their complaint.

Valnet did not respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

Courts reporter Julie Manganis can be reached at 978-338-2521, by email at jmanganis@salemnews.com or on Twitter at @SNJulieManganis.