Binary blob corruption

I'm trying to track down a bizarre binary blob corruption issue. I'm
running svn v1.7.3 on FreeBSD, and I can replicate the corruption issue
with the file access method on a fresh repository. Basically I create a
new repository, "ls -l" the file before committing, remove the file, and
then update. An "ls -l" at that point shows that the file has shrunk.
I've attached a script file that demonstrates this.

Any ideas for how I can track this down? I'm sure I'm missing a client
option or something.

Thanks a bunch!

Skylar