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.
Rush Limbaugh just said that he felt that Daddy Berg’s first interview with the press was strange. He felt Berg’s outward show of sadness and emotion was a little staged, if you will. I am not quoting or speaking for Rush by any means, but this is what I understood him to say. Rush didn’t want to comment more on the subject out of respect for the family.
That's what I am thinking also. The ONLY reason to think this is because of what his father said about Nick being AlQeada's Best Friend!!! Geesh.
Why did Nick give Moussoui a computer??
RIGHT! More likely.
Apparently he knew a bunch of Arabs at Norman. There seems to be conflicting information about whether he gave the computer to Moussaoui, or let him use it on a bus, or sold it to Moussaoui, or whether he did one of those things with a mutual acquaintance of himself and Moussaoui.
In my opinion, the question of whom he knew in Norman is important to understand exactly who he was and what he was doing in Iraq. The other important questions are who he was working for in Iraq, who paid him, how he got his jobs, why he was working at night, what he was doing during the day, and which police/military groups held him, and when.
gave him a computer?? i will say there are so many things here that look fishy,but could also be explained like the computer wasnt given but sold as used to someone who n then sold it again(same area)..have to wait to see how this plays out
Wanna ask him?
petetri@prometheusradio.org
I'm with you. My husband heard on Janet Parshall's show the other day that Nick worked the Republican convention and was known to many in that capacity. I didn't hear it though, so I can't confirm this. Nor could I find anything at her website.
I worry about people smearing him because of his father. Freepers bitched louder than anyone when Mel Gibson was being attacked the same way. Unfortunately, Nick can't defend himself.
From here: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2004/5/14/95211.shtml
Authorities tried to tell Berg to go home and offered to pay for everything, but he told them: "You don't understand these people like I do. You're here for a reason - and so am I."
Kind of cryptic, but I think he believed he could make a difference. He was young and optimistic.
He could have been a Freeper, fercryinoutloud.
This is a very good analysis. I have had pretty good luck with evaluating people both in terms of hiring/managing/firing and in my personal life. It's about 70% behavioral observation and about 30% general feel. Looking at all the facts, I think your analysis is very close to the truth, IMHO.
Thanks. If I'd looked closer when I first found Prometheus Radio on the state site, I would have known that! Oh well.
The Italian was shot in the back of the head, if you're talking about one of the 4 who were held together.
In fact, the other 3 must still be held, haven't heard anything about them lately. Except for the news that there were demands for either money or release of prisoners for the 3, made to the Italian govt, who told the terrorists where to go. No deal.
Good question. I am slowly edging toward a belief that like many of the revolutionary Left, Mike Berg was not above shamefully exploiting and manipulating his son's business for his own agenda. The Prometheus NGO might have been either something his father was driving, a project of Nick's, or perhaps, as claimed, not *formally* related to either man. Now a bit more on this last possibility. If true, then I would imagine that Mike Berg planted the idea with some of his ANSWER buddies and was the silent partner. Just hunches.... we'll see. In any case, it is certainly possible that Prometheus Antenna was either knowingly or unwittingly doing ops for Prometheus the NGO. It would fit, and would explain the FBI scrutiny.
Yours is a nice assessment... but after reading the little I have, I think he was much less innocent than you suggest. Time will tell.
Save the source code before it disappears.
Tridish, 33, was born in New York as Dylan Wrynn but took a pseudonym
inspired by the petri dish, a container for culturing bacteria, in
1996. That was the year he became one of the founders of Radio Mutiny,
a pirate station that broadcast from secret locations in West
http://www.worldofradio.com/dxld4031.txt.
I think that is a great idea to start a thread to pull it all together because I am on two threads and maybe more.
This thing gets stranger -- I thought Moussaoui was in Norman in the first part of 2000 for six months. Seems that Berg was at OU for the Fall Semester 1999 and then dropped out without withdrawing. According to what I just heard Berg didn't leave Norman right away so he overlapped with Moussaoui.
They are saying Moussaoui met his roommates at a local mosque (didn't even know we had one in Norman) and a separate report says they all met at the local health club but that health club in the Huffman Center on the OU campus. One of the roommates was a PhD candidate and the other one overstayed his visa. Both were taken into custody after 9-11. Seems Moussaoui had two laptop computers with him in MN and they searched two more computers at OU looking for emails back in 2002.
Professors don't remember Berg but the Lloyd Noble Center where OU plays basketball does -- said he was friendly with everyone. He was studying civil engineering here at OU and didn't return for the spring semester.
One of Moussaoui's roommates was advised by Moussaoui to go to Pakistan to join the cause.
Apartment complex won't answer if Berg lived at the same complex as Moussaoui.
: "...when Nick Berg, 26, walked into the kettle of paranoia and violence that is Iraq, people suddenly didn't see the same guy his buddies from Henderson High knew. Suddenly, Berg's stubborn wanderlust made him a target of suspicion - a religious Jew riding around Mosul in a taxi with a copy of the Koran.
Some U.S. soldiers even wondered if the patriotic Berg was "a wannabe freedom fighter.""
>>>snip<<<
"His next venture (after Cornell, according to this account) was Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc., which builds, maintains and inspects communications towers. He ran the business out of a farm in Lancaster County owned by his foreman, Scott Hollinger. Berg - listening to news or hard rock like Led Zeppelin while shunning TV - typically worked some 60 to 70 hours a week."
>>>snip<<<
"On March 24, Berg was arrested while riding in a taxi in downtown Mosul. The military source in Iraq, who spoke with the Philadelphia Daily News by telephone, said he was jailed because unescorted Americans aren't usually seen downtown and "they didn't know what to do with him."
He said police were suspicious because of "his demeanor," and authorities also wanted to know why he had the Koran and a book that the source said may have been called "The Jewish Problem" or "The Jewish Solution." (referred to elsewhere in the article as "anti-Semitic.")
>>>snip<<<
The source said it's unclear exactly why Berg had spent close to two weeks in jail. Although he insisted that Berg had been under Iraqi control, the FBI also questioned Berg three times and visited his parents back in West Chester, Pa.
"He'd made some contact with Arab kids at the University of Oklahoma - that's what the FBI was checking into ... a guy from Oklahoma," the source said. He said the FBI wanted to know if the Oklahoma connection was "why he came over here."
He said the Oklahoma contact was "related to somebody who was involved in 9/11." But he didn't know if that person was jailed al-Qaida supporter Zacarias Moussaoui, who attended the University of Oklahoma close to when Berg was there in 2000.
Hollinger said he knew Berg had attended the University of Oklahoma and made friends with some Arabs or Muslims.
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A slightly different take than the father's explanation of Nick's chance encounter with "terrorists" on a bus.
Post #254 -- I agree!
No nothing close to that, if I remember correctly they grossed about $900.00 a week. If it were $70,000 a week I imagine they would still be doing it!
Montana Beth
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