He was a 46-year-old man in a service dress Air Force uniform with the rank of '05 on his shoulder boards and the operations plans division on his name tag. He had been on my staff for 8 months. I had reviewed his officer performance report two months earlier and signed it without raising my eyebrows. He sat in the second row of chairs in my conference room. He briefed the wing on the weekly missile alert readiness schedule.
He returned to his desk in the operations plans office at the conclusion of the meeting. I returned to my office at 0915 and asked my executive officer, Major Bridget Hourbach, to pull Lieutenant Colonel Pendergast's personnel file. I read the file at my desk in the early afternoon. His current home address was listed as a Sentinel Ridge Estates residence. His spouse's name was listed as Brian Pendergast.
His spouse's occupation was listed as homeowners association president, Sentinel Ridge Estates, HOA. I sat at my desk for a long moment. I closed the file. I asked Major Hourbach to schedule a closed door meeting at 0800 Wednesday with Colonel Aurora Reinholm, the F Warren Air Force Office of Special Investigations Detachment 803 Commander. Colonel Reinholm arrived in my office at 0800 sharp on Wednesday.
She was 44. She had served on the AFOSI active shooter response task force in 2017 and on the Pentagon joint investigations liaison in 2020. She had been my AFOSI counterpart at FE Warren since my command tour began. I briefed her on the Pendergast family situation. I told her I had no specific allegation against Lieutenant Colonel Pendergast at that time.
I told her that the appearance of conflict between my command authority and his spouse's HOA harassment activity against my own residence created an operational ethics concern that needed quiet examination before any further command action. Colonel Reinhome listened. She said one sentence. Sir, AFOSI Detachment 803 has been quietly tracking unusual basic allowance for housing flow patterns at Sentinel Ridge Estates since April of 2024. Six FE Warren residents, all currently or formerly assigned to your operations directorate, are paying above market rents at Sentinel Ridge while drawing maximum BAH aotment.
We have not had a predicate to formally open the investigation. I asked her what she needed. She said, "Sir, I need either a written complaint from a Sentinel Ridge resident or an overt act by the development principles that involves the Air Force in a misuse of authority. Either would activate the joint ethics regulation investigation pathway. I told her I would not interfere with her timing.
I told her I would not relocate the F250. I told her, in fact, that I would continue to park the F250 visibly in my own driveway on every Saturday morning for the foreseeable future. Colonel Reinholm smiled slowly, the kind of smile a federal investigator smiles when a future predicate act has just become inevitable. She said, "Sir, understood." She stood up.
She walked out of my office. She closed the door behind her. For the next six weeks, I drove the 2009 F250 to every weekend errand I had to the Cheyenne Saddler Hay and Feed on Saturday mornings, to the Sentinel Ridge Estates entrance gate on the way to take my father to the Cheyenne VA Medical Center for his Tuesday neurology follow-ups to the Federal Courthouse on Capitol Avenue on Friday afternoons. When I drove Marray home from the bench, the truck was visible. The truck was, in the technical language of HOA newsletters, an eyes sore inconsistent with community visual standards.
The truck was, in the actual language of property law, a privatelyowned, properly registered, fully insured motor vehicle parked on Callaway family land. Briany Pendergast filed her second letter in early December of 2024. It was longer. It was angrier. It cited an updated community boundary survey that, according to the letter, had been filed with the county in October of 2024.