I-Team Investigation: Home front heartbreak
FAYETTEVILLE (WTVD) -- On the surface, Saroya Pendleton-Brown and Renee Stewart have little in common.
Twenty years separate them in age. Twelve-hundred miles separate them in their Fayetteville, North Carolina and Jamaica homes. One is an educator, and the other works in financial services.
But until recently, both women shared the same name at the same time. They were both Mrs. Courtney Brown, and have spent the greater part of this year in a back-and-forth for justice with his former employer, the United States Army.
Brown, an Army Sergeant who was recently discharged as the result of an investigation into bigamy, adultery and fraud, may face a civilian criminal case in Cumberland County.
For each of his wives, one former and one current, the past few years have been a journey to justice, vengeance, and closure.
"It's just one memory after the other, after the other after the other," said Stewart via a Skype interview from Jamaica.
"He preys on women for his own personal, financial and sexual gain," said Pendleton-Brown. "That's all it is. It's all a game."
MULTIPLE WIVES
Pendleton-Brown, 47, met a handsome, charming Fort Bragg soldier in mid-August 2009. It was a chance meeting in a Fayetteville shopping center parking lot.
Sgt. Courtney Brown, 34, was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division, and Pendleton-Brown describes the relationship as fast-moving.
"After a year, he actually went to Iraq. After coming back from Iraq, he moved into my home. We started dating," said Pendleton-Brown.
The couple married in May 2011, and enjoyed a life of travel and romance. Brown would be sent from Fort Bragg to Germany on a short tour in which Saroya Pendleton-Brown would stay in Fayetteville. Two years into the marriage, Sgt. Brown received orders to report to Fort Benning, Georgia. His new wife followed, but soon the pair had domestic violence issues and they began to grow apart.
Within a few months of arriving to their new home, Pendleton-Brown said she unpacked the shock of her life.
"There was several tough boxes that he carried with him when he was in Iraq, Afghanistan, and also in Germany. Those boxes were never at our home," she said.
"As I looked through those boxes, that's where I discovered wife number three. I discovered wife number two, and I discovered wife number one," said Pendleton-Brown, "and wife number three was still married to him when he was married to me."
Pendleton-Brown said she never knew the young soldier had ever been married period, much less three times. Wife number three would be a then-20-year-old Renee Stewart, a Jamaican woman. Stewart had been introduced to Brown in 2009 through her co-worker, a relative of Brown's.
Stewart said a couple of months of phone conversations led to a visit.
"I thought that he was attractive, had a good personality that was for sure. Charm and charisma," she said.
Within two weeks of the visit, Brown proposed marriage.
"The first thing that went through my head was 'He's joking. He could not be serious,' and he said 'I am.' He was actually serious," she said.
They married. He deployed, and they made plans to reunite upon his return before separating in 2009. Stewart said he'd changed. He was aloof, even when she'd suffered the loss of a baby.
It wasn't working out.
Three years into the marriage, Stewart would learn about Pendleton-Brown, who found a Homeland Security file in that box she unpacked. It showed Brown had withdrawn his request for Stewart to come to the U.S. in 2010. It also had Stewart's number.
"I said 'Well, I'm his wife.' And she said 'Well, I'm his wife," Stewart recalled. "He grabbed the phone away from her and he somehow convinced her that I was some crazy chick."
"The conversation ended abruptly and I never heard from him again," she continued.
Pendleton-Brown, who discovered her husband was already being investigated for adultery at Fort Benning, took the information to his command.
"I contacted the commander. I contacted the first sergeant, and I sent them a text and told them I had some information I needed to share with them because at this point, I believe Courtney is a bigamist," said Pendleton-Brown. "They said they would proceed with an investigation."
CONGRESSIONAL INQUIRIES, MILITARY AND CIVILIAN INVESTIGATIONS
As the Army was investigating the claims, Cumberland County courts made their own discovery.
In June, they granted Pendleton-Brown an annulment based on bigamy. During the process they discovered a 2011 divorce they granted Sgt. Brown and Stewart was fraudulent.
Somehow, Brown had convinced the courts that Stewart, who has never been to the United States, actually lived in Fayetteville and agreed to a divorce prior to his marriage to Pendleton-Brown.
The courts found out Brown had forged the agreement, but didn't make the discovery until the summer of 2014, during the annulment proceedings.
Meanwhile, the Army had started an investigation of its own last spring, two months after Pendleton-Brown took her discovery to Brown's command.
Pendleton-Brown was assigned a victim's advocate for both the bigamy issue and the domestic violence incidents.
She'd also reached out to North Carolina Congresswoman Renee Ellmers for help, because she said the Army showed no interest in prosecuting Brown.
"The military has informed me at this time that they do not prosecute adultery or bigamy due to resources, due to things they just don't have the money to do," Pendleton-Brown said in August. "They don't have the time."
At that point Brown was still in service.
In a September response to Ellmers' inquiry, Fort Benning officials said they'd acted swiftly in responding to Pendleton-Brown's claims, but were initially stalled by her lack of cooperation with investigators. They go on to say that they didn't have proof of Brown's multiple marriages until August, when Stewart provided court documents by email.
But a Military Police report shows investigators received certified court documents from Cumberland County two months earlier, in June 2014. At that time, they determined "probable cause" to charge Brown with an Article 134, a general article that covers several offenses, including bigamy.
Instead, they closed that portion of the case with no further explanation.
DISCHARGE AND MOVING ON
By October 2nd, Sgt. Brown received a General Discharge from the Army. Fort Benning officials said they would not provide the classification - honorable or dishonorable - due to privacy constraints. The discharge was for fraud, forgery and adultery, but not bigamy.
Meanwhile, Cumberland County prosecutors are awaiting a final Fayetteville Police department investigative file. FPD got involved because the couple lived off-Post in Pendleton-Brown's home, and also dealt with domestic violence issues here. Prosecutors will use that investigation to decide whether to criminally prosecute Brown for the bigamy.
"This is a felony," said Pendleton-Brown. "If it wasn't the law, against the law, then it wouldn't be marked a felony, and they need to prosecute him."
Stewart, who is still legally married to Brown and entitled spousal support, called her spouse "vile" and said all she wants is a divorce at this point.
"That is something that I would have to go after and fight for to get, and honestly I'm not going to do that," said Stewart, referring to receiving benefits. "That's going to take more of my energy, more of my life."
"I haven't had as much closure in the situation as Courtney, and that's what I'm aiming for - closure," said Stewart.
Because Brown was legally married to both women when he was assigned to Fort Bragg, Pendleton-Brown also reached out to investigators there. Fort Bragg officials tell Eyewitness News that none of the information they were provided substantiated an Inspector General complaint or report.
Brown has not responded to calls, an email, or contact through his attorney.
"Who could make up such a fantastic story? Not even a story writer could put all the twists and the bends and the bolts and the nuts into this unless they actually lived through," said Pendleton-Brown, addressing naysayers. "This is something you actually have to live through, and it's horrific. It's tragic."
BIGAMY LAW, HIGH-PROFILE CASES
Bigamy is a felony offense in North Carolina, but is rarely prosecuted. Often, cost and lack of resources are cited as reasons to forego prosecution.
Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, bigamy is classified under an Article 134. It carries a maximum sentence of dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and two years confinement.
On his website, military criminal defense lawyer Joseph Jordan outlines how often the military will proceed with courts-martial in bigamy cases.
Recent high-profile cases include that of Colonel James Johnson III, an Army commander who pleaded guilty to a number of charges in 2012, including bigamy. Johnson had married his Iraqi mistress after producing a fake divorce document tied to his long-time American wife. The case drew outrage when Johnson received what many considered a light sentence of a $300,000 fine for combined offenses that also included fraud and adultery.
In North Carolina, local prosecutors have said it is too costly to extradite a former Fort Bragg soldier charged with bigamy. A 2012 arrest warrant is out for Timothy Pennock, who married a fourth wife, Kelly Butler, during leave from Afghanistan. Butler believed she was the first and only wife, only to find out that she and wife number three were married simultaneously.
In 2012, Butler and Pennock married in Wrightsville Beach. At the time he was an Army sergeant stationed at Bragg, but he eventually moved on to the California National Guard. The Army has since issued a less-than-honorable discharge, but New Hanover prosecutors have not brought him back to North Carolina to face criminal prosecution because of the costs.
This week, Butler told Eyewitness News that she is still awaiting an annulment, which can't be complete unless Pennock is present in North Carolina for the proceedings. It's unclear where he is today.
