FAYETTEVILLE
Four months before Monday's announcement that a soldier had been charged with a sexual assault on Fort Bragg, Fayetteville police charged him with breaking into a home and pointing an air gun at the residents.
The Fayetteville Observer reported that Spc. Aaron M. Pernell was charged Sept. 11 with burglary of a home on Old Castle Road and with assault by pointing a gun. He was booked into the Cumberland County Jail, police records show.
The records say that Pernell was released Oct. 22, when his estranged wife, Shawna Loren Levzow-Augenstein Pernell, arranged to post his $50,000 bail.
On Tuesday, Fayetteville police publicly named Pernell "a person of interest" in seven sexual assaults in the city. Five of those assaults happened after his release from jail, the records show.
Fayetteville police are now trying to determine whether Pernell, who is 22, committed any of the sexual assaults in the city.
Members of a task force assembled to investigate the assaults were tight-lipped Wednesday. But Fayetteville police Capt. Mark Bridgeman, a task force spokesman, did say that Pernell's arrest shouldn't make people feel safe.
"People should remain vigilant based on what the case is," he said.
A day earlier, police spokesman Chris Davis said, "At this point, we do not have any direct evidence connecting him to our cases. We're in the process of trying to do that."
Two days before his release from jail, Cumberland County court documents show, a magistrate evicted Pernell from Regency Apartments and ordered him to pay $792.75 in rent and late fees.
After his release, family members say, he returned to Fort Bragg and lived in the barracks. Pernell is a member of the 1st Battalion of the 82nd Airborne Division's 325th Airborne Infantry Regiment.
Maj. Brian Fickel, a division spokesman, said Pernell was not placed on restrictions, but the Army ordered a sergeant to accompany him on post. If he left Fort Bragg, a noncommissioned officer had to escort him, Fickel said.
Fickel said that the Army has no record of Pernell getting an Article 15 disciplinary action.
Pernell's estranged wife, who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., said she does not think her husband is capable of the crimes he is accused of committing.
"It's not like him," Shawna Pernell said. "I'm just as shocked as my parents are. Something serious has to be going on with him, because he would never do that."
She said she met her husband on Jan. 15, 2008, while she was transferring to Fort Bragg. He asked her for a light, even though his cigarette was already burning. Shawna Pernell said she thought he was charming.
They married six months later, and she left the Army before giving birth to his daughter six months after that.
Shawna's mother-in-law, Margaret Thostenson, said stress quickly began to take its toll on the young couple. They began fighting over money problems and allegations of infidelity, she said. Thostenson said Pernell wouldn't help take care of the baby or the house.
At the end of last June, Shawna left Fort Bragg to live with the Thostensons in Florida.
"He got arrested for the burglary in September and that was basically it," she said. "I couldn't do it anymore."
Since then, she said, the two only talk about finances or their daughter.
Shawna, who is 20, and Thostenson said Pernell suffered from mental health issues.
Shawna said any loud noise would cause her husband to jump to the ceiling. Pernell's family members said Tuesday that they thought 15 months in Iraq had changed him.
All of the family members said Pernell went to his Army supervisor seeking mental health treatment and was told he didn't need it.
The Army is barred by confidentiality laws from publicly discussing mental health issues involving individual soldiers.
Thostenson believes the break-up with Shawna, combined with the stresses of war, caused something in Pernell to snap.
After Shawna left, Thostenson said, they went back to retrieve some of her belongings from the apartment and found it a mess. She said clothes and dirty dishes were everywhere, "like he hadn't done anything to take care of it after Shawna had left."
Shawna believes that is indicative that something went wrong with her husband's mind.
"I won't make excuses for him either, but something has to be going on," she said. "I really hope it isn't him because I want him to have a relationship with his daughter."
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