Tennessee- A co-founder of the New York-based investment company proposing a Bible-based theme park in Rutherford County was once a prolific photographer for Penthouse magazine in the 1970s.

But the co-founder’s son, who has been the public face for the project for the past year, said his father’s photo work three decades ago is irrelevant to the theme park project, and that Monday Internet reports, including that of The Daily News Journal, highlighting the photo work was nothing more than “tabloid-style journalism.”

The subject of the reports was Amnon Bar-Tur. He is the father of Armon Bar-Tur, the face and voice of the yearlong effort by SafeHarbor Holding LLC to promote and win approval for the park in the Blackman area west of Murfreesboro. Father and son, along with other wealthy investors, formed SafeHarbor in 2005 in New York City.

Little has been made public about the elder Bar-Tur, his ties to Penthouse or his link to a company called C2 Media that in October 2001 sought federal bankruptcy protection. C2 Media, which Amnon Bar-Tur helped found, owed money to several financial institutions, including almost $35 million to JP Morgan Chase.

In a statement released hours after the developments were posted on a WKRN-Channel 2 blog, Armon Bar-Tur called the report distorted and irrelevant.

“Surely what a young immigrant photographer did 35 years ago to make a living in his first job out of college as a fashion photographer has no relevance to the development of our world-class tourist attraction in Rutherford County in 2008,” Armon Bar-Tur said.

The non-denominational park — which would feature Colonial Williamsburg-like re-enactments of ancient life, theaters for Broadway-sized biblical musicals and other attractions based on stories in the Bible — has drawn opposition from Blackman residents who are concerned about traffic and how well a large tourist attraction would fit in with the character of their neighborhood. They also believe developers’ estimates of 1.5 million visitors a year are overstated.

Some Rutherford County business leaders and residents, however, have supported the park because of the potential for tourism and the money visitors would spend.

Marshall Campbell, a Blackman community resident, said he is not concerned that Amnon Bar-Tur was involved with a company that filed bankruptcy.

“Take a look at how many companies went bankrupt (during that time),” the senior operations manager for a Murfreesboro tele-communications company said. “I think the fact that he rode through 9-11 and brought it back as a profitable venture ought to say something.”

Campbell remains supportive of the development.

“My main reason is that I think it can be good for the economy. I think it is a better idea for that area than another subdivision. It’s a business, and like any business it stands a chance of failing, but you never know.”

As far as the photos, Campbell doesn’t care, but acknowledges that they could become an issue.

“He did it back in the ’60s and ’70s, it doesn’t make any difference to me,” he said. “But with all due respect, the opposition is going to look for anything they can to fight it, and to be honest, it’s good fodder. If I was the opposition, I would use it.”

Last month, the county planners rejected a rezoning request. The final decision rests with the County Commission.

The park would cost $175 million or more, part of which would come from property tax revenue and a 5 percent privilege tax that would repay construction bonds. County commissioners also must sign off on the financing plan, which county Mayor Ernest Burgess has endorsed.

“I am not going to judge what any person did 35 years ago that might not be appropriate,” Burgess said. “It isn’t illegal, but it was not anything I would have participated in.”

Blackman resident John L. Batey, who opposes the park, doesn’t think Bar-Tur’s business and photography past has any bearing on the Bible park.

“I don’t see any connection,” Batey said. “I am opposed to the Bible Park for other reasons. It’s the wrong location — a residential neighborhood. I think it can’t succeed in Rutherford County because of this location.”

Mona Herring, vice president of the Rutherford County Chamber of Commerce’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, would not comment Monday night on the revelations.

As the proposal for the park, its zoning and its financing have progressed, SafeHarbor Holding has met with residents and leaders of government and business to promote it, and it has created Web sites and fact sheets on the company and the park

None of those documents mention Amnon Bar-Tur, who is SafeHarbor’s head of European relations. The park fact sheet lists the principals as: Safe-Harbor Holding, Armon Bar-Tur and the creator of the Bible Park, Ronen Paldi.

The park’s Web site gives the younger Bar-Tur’s resume, which touts his management of millions of dollars in investment during his career at Morgan Stanley.

SafeHarbor also is credited with developing a $400 million Hard Rock Café theme park in South Carolina set to open this summer. There were several investors in that project.

Only after Monday’s “Nashville is Talking” blog report revealed Amnon Bar-Tur’s connection to the Bible park did the developers release his biography.

Amnon Bar-Tur was born in Israel, where he grew up and served as military photographer and later a newspaper photographer. He moved to England in 1966 where he studied photography. He also got his first Penthouse assignments, which the biography states, “focused on men’s fashion.”

Internet searches Monday on “Amnon Bar-Tur” and “Penthouse” turned up several references to his photographs of women in the magazine and none for men’s fashion.

“He started as a men’s fashion photographer during 1969-72,” said Terri Sterling of Sterling Communications, a spokeswoman for SafeHarbor. “He was also asked to take some of the glamour photography, which is what he also did.”

The biography released Monday said that after Penthouse moved its operations from England to the United States, the magazine “continued to use archived photos shot earlier by Mr. Bar-Tur.”

Amnon Bar-Tur moved his family to the United States in 1976 and established a graphic and digital imaging company, Chroma Copy, in 1981.

Chroma Copy was one of seven companies that merged in 1999 to form digital/print media company C2 Media LLC. Bar-Tur is listed as a co-founder of C2 Media.

U.S. Bankruptcy Court documents show that C2 Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Oct. 10, 2001. The company was in debt for about $71 million — equal to its assets at the time.

Amnon Bar-Tur served as the “executive chairman” of C2’s board since May 1999, and prior to that had been the chief executive officer for about five months in the company’s infancy, according to the court records.

According to the bankruptcy affidavit filed by co-founder David J. Manning, C2 Media executives attributed the company’s downfall to a softened economy and “by a dramatic fall-off in business following the World Trade Center disaster.”

The company’s inability to pay off the debt also stemmed from the collapse in 2000 of the initial public offering market, which allows a private companies to sell its stock to the public. Without the IPO, the documents said, C2 could not pay back what it owed.

C2 Media still exists after the company went through reorganization and settled with creditors in 2004, the court documents show.

The Ingram Group, which oversees public affairs for Bible Park USA, said in the biography released Monday that Amnon Bar-Tur was responsible for the reorganization of the C2, which still operates today.

“Bar-Tur has successfully managed the reorganization, selling or closing of several of the previously acquired companies thereby reducing debt,” the biography states. “2007 was a record sales year for the company.”

In the release, Bar-Tur’s son Armon, provided a statement:

“I am proud of what my father, Amnon Bar-Tur, has accomplished in his lifetime — from young Israeli soldier and veteran newspaper photographer to head of European operations for SafeHarbor Holding. He has been a wonderful father and mentor to me, and I am saddened that this has become a matter for tabloid-style journalism.”

He does not mention the bankruptcy.

Park opponent Rafe Hyatt, a resident of the Blackman area, said the bankruptcy did concern him as well as reports he’s read about Armon Bar-Tur’s past business dealings.

Hyatt, a quality manager in the cell phone business and three-year Blackman resident, remains against the Bible park because he doesn’t believe it has a successful business model. The photos by Amnon Bar-Tur doesn’t change that view one way or the other.

“Maybe it reflects on his character and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it will affect public opinion and maybe it won’t,” he said. “My opinion is that the business plan for the park is so risky and the financing plan is so risky that we don’t need this kind of sleaze (the photos) to make our case that we don’t want to do business with this guy.”

Burgess, the Rutherford County mayor, said the bankruptcy doesn’t have much relevance to 2008 and the park proposal.

“The developers must show they can provide satisfactory evidence of their capacity including but not limited to financial capacity to operate the project,” said Burgess. “If at any time we discover they do not have the management, financial or structural capacity to do it, then we certainly wouldn’t finalize the deal,” he said. “None of these things mentioned indicated they don’t have any of this. I think it is inappropriate to make judgment without more current information.’

As for the photos, Burgess said they might affect public perception, even if they aren’t germane to the here and now.

“Anything positive or negative may have a bearing,” he said. “Anything that happened 35 years ago that is negative may have a bearing. There is still a journey that is ahead of us to evaluate.”