Posted on 05/14/2004 3:43:32 AM PDT by calcowgirl
Prometheus Methods Tower Services Inc., the business that cost Nick Berg his life in Iraq, has no records with the Pennsylvania Department of State.
The company that specialized in building communications towers never registered with the Pennsylvania Corporation Bureau, said Brian McDonald, spokesman for the state department.
McDonald conducted a search of the bureau’s online list of registered businesses, but found no matches.
The same search done by a Daily Local News reporter produced the same results -- several businesses contained the word "Prometheus" in their names. Only one is located in West Chester, and it is not related to Berg’s business.
Companies are not legally required to register with the state, but McDonald explained it is usually the first step an owner takes.
"You’d be very foolish not to register your business with the department," he said. "It is nearly impossible to exist without doing it."
Registering allows an owner to set up his business’s tax structure. It also establishes how the business is run, for example, whether or not it is for-profit or nonprofit.
"It is basically the infrastructure by which businesses are set up in the commonwealth," McDonald said.
McDonald added it is possible the business could be listed in the bureau’s records under a different name.
Searching the statewide yellow pages online found two company names containing the word "Prometheus" in Philadelphia. One is an Internet consulting business.
An employee at the second one, which is called Prometheus Radio Project, said it was not affiliated with the business owned by the local man slain in Iraq by members of al-Qaida.
Officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Revenue and the Internal Revenue Service said state and federal laws prohibited their agencies from providing any records they had of Prometheus Methods Tower Services -- even whether the company had ever filed a return.
"Any information that we get or is contained on a tax return I can’t release," said Steve Kniley, press secretary for the state revenue department. "It is considered confidential under tax law."
Tax records become public information only if a lien is filed against a business. According to Kniley, there are no liens against Berg’s company.
Bill Cressman, spokesman at the IRS’s Philadelphia office, said the only companies with public tax records are nonprofit corporations.
At least one person claims he can confirm Prometheus’ existence.
Jay Shur, who works at the radio station WCHE 1520 AM in West Chester, said on Wednesday he was in the process of hiring Berg to build a communications tower for the station when news of his death came out.
The station was awaiting approval of plans from both the borough and an environmental agency before construction could begin, according to Shur.
"There’s a lot of paperwork to go through, and the area we were looking at was a marsh- land so we had to get clearance," he said."When I do get the OK, I’ll have to look for another contractor."
Michael Berg briefly spoke about Prometheus during a press conference Thursday morning outside his home.
"My son was not over there to make money," Michael Berg said. "My son’s business, which was very profitable before he went to Iraq ..I will make good on anything the company owes anybody, but it’s pretty much going to be defunct."
It is unclear how many employees Prometheus had. Michael Berg spoke of a "foreman" during the press conference. However, Nick Berg traveled to Iraq alone.
Staff Writer Jill Nawrocki contributed to this article.
I thought CIA when the first odd facts started coming out but now I think it's something different, like a puzzle that's too easy to solve. Almost like a "Where's Waldo" with the only character being Waldo in the picture.
I gave the Father some slack, it's the media that's exploiting this Father's grief for their own political agenda. Kerry of course is a disgrace to use his phone call to the Father for his political purposes. This isn't going to help Kerry or the Berg Family for that matter.
Nothing he did makes me think he was CIA - it was either complete naivette - or something else in the wacko category.
In an e-mail addressed to his family, Nick Berg describes going into the Iraqi jail and finding himself in with "Mother rapers. Father stabbers," a line from Alice's Restaurant, after the singer finds himself arrested for dumping garbage. .
For those who don't know, the song was by Arlo Guthrie and is about dumping a load of restaurant garbage off a cliff in the country, getting arrested by the sheriff for illegal dumping, and then finding that he is ineligible to join the Army because of his littering. You have to imagine all of this "sung" in a supercilious hippie folk-music drone.
Here are some words:
I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to
ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm
sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench
'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug."
Not incorporated in Delaware or Nevada, either:
Delaware Secretary of State: https://sos-res.state.de.us/tin/controller
Nevada Secretary of State:
http://sos.state.nv.us/corpsrch.asp
My current, totally unfounded, totally unsupported, speculation is that his 'Prometheus' is part of 'Prometheus Radio Project' and he was there to try to set up radio broadcasting of Left Wing propaganda to undermine the troops and the war.
Of course, I could be proven wrong in a second... but in looking at what PRP is... it sure would make sense!
I'm afraid this man will find himself far more exposed than he planned.
Prometheus Towers, Broadcast work, overseas work Nick Berg
Nick is too young to have Arlo Guthrie phrases like "Mother rapers. Father stabbers" in his vocabulary (unless of course Dad still listens to that stuff). But... who's to say those emails are legit, i.e. unmodified. That sounds like 60's stuff coming out of the Birkenstock age... not from a 26 year old.
I remember Arlo... but wasn't a fan.
He had to have heard those phrases at home. He didn't make them up himself.
Now wait just a minute, I wear Birkenstocks! Do people think I am a liberal? I don't think they do. They think I wear ugly shoes but its because my feet don't hurt when I wear them, its NOT a political statement.
I suspect he probably grew up surrounded by it. I knew many "red diaper" babies (I grew up in NYC and went to a very liberal public high school) and they had grown up listening to the Internationale and various Depression era protest songs (such as those written by Arlo's father, Woody Guthrie.) I'm sure Arlo Guthrie was one of Daddy Berg's favorites, so no doubt his kids heard the song and others like it a lot.
It tells us something about the atmosphere in the house where Nicholas Berg grew up, at least.
It get's curiouser, and curiouser...!!
FRegards,
Ping...
ROFL! So sorry! Ugly shoes... LOL.
Before we had any facts on this story, my only knowledge of this event was the photo of Nick Berg with his captors. What first hit me - and I know this is weird - was his very Islamic/Arabic beard and haircut. Very different from the photos from America that show him with a military-style haircut. This is just how it hit me. Now I'm wondering if I didn't intuitively pick up on something. I'm finding this story horribly eerie.
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