State has no records of Berg's firm (Nick Berg)

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.

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.

Berg was here in the Fall of 1999 at OU but no one knows when he left Norman.

Which is exactly what I was questioning. What, if anything, was keeping Nick in Norman after he quit OU? From another article earlier in the thread it appears Moussaoui wasn't around in 99. Moussaoui is in OKC in 01, is learning to fly in Norman Feb to March 01, and a friend drives him to MN Aug 01 (the computer shows up in MN). Al-Hazmi is getting ticketed for speeding somewhere in OK in Apr 01.

However, Atta and Al Shehhi are in Norman in July 2000. This date is 7 months after when Nick quit OU so that's somewhat closer to the timeline. Nick admits to giving Moussaoui the computer, so what was he doing in Norman after quitting OU in Dec. 99 to when Moussaoui gets computer Feb/Mar 01?

Why would he still be in Norman, OK over a year (Feb/Mar 01)later to ride on the same bus with Moussaoui?

It's easy to be confused with all the misreporting. CBS today on their website says that Berg gave the password directly to Moussaoui, but that's not what Berg's father or the FBI reported.

If you read the direct quote from Berg's father in my post, he states the son didn't come into contact with Moussaoui directly, but with "some terrorist people — no one knew they were terrorists at the time, they were just fellow students — were also taking the bus..."

According to KJRH Channel 2, Tulsa: "Berg attended the University of Oklahoma during the 1999-2000 school year, but did not graduate... During his time in Norman, Berg was employed as a temporary employee at the Lloyd Noble Center. His job was to help setup and tear down events. Those who knew him say Berg loved to debate political and social issues. They also say he was always looking for ways to better himself."

Several other news sources have mentioned that Nicholas used skills learned at the job in Norman to get a job at the Republican National Convention, which took place July 29 - August 3, 2000 in Philadelphia. The timeline is vague, but I get the impression that Nicholas didn't return to Oklahoma after that.

Aside from the visit to Norman by Atta and al-Shehhi in late June/early July, there are other possibilities in the password theft.

Moussaoui didn't arrive in Oklahoma until February 2001, but he roomed with two Muslims, Husseim Al-Attas and Mukarram Ali who were apparently attending the University before he got there.

From CBS News, July 22, 2002:

""al-Attas, who was an engineering student at the University of Oklahoma, had shared an apartment with Moussaoui and at least one other person for several weeks."

From Newsday, 2003:

"Moussaoui did sign up for a pass to a University of Oklahoma exercise facility in Norman from May through August (2001). Some students, a university spokesman said, remember him using the weights and cardiovascular equipment.

According to some members of the Muslim community there, he found temporary housing with two other men -- Hussein al-Attas, who said he was from Saudi Arabia, and Mukarram Ali, who said he was from India. Members of the mosque understood that both were students, and they had been attending the mosque for some time before Moussaoui appeared."

From the LA Times, March 30, 2002:

"In the following weeks, Moussaoui spent his time in Oklahoma, much of it with two Muslims he had met through a mosque in Norman, according to those who knew them and government officials. Both men now are in federal custody, presumably held as material witnesses against Moussaoui.

"One of those friends, Hussein al-Attas, who was detained with Moussaoui in Minnesota, said Moussaoui talked to him for hours about the plight of Muslims and their need to fight the West, official sources say. A 19-year-old Yemeni who had memorized the Koran cover to cover, al-Attas would accompany Moussaoui on the next--and final--leg of his journey.

"The other, another fellow worshiper at the mosque named Mukarram Ali, lent Moussaoui a Compaq laptop computer that would briefly be the focus of federal investigators' efforts to determine whether--and what--Moussaoui was plotting."

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