You're more likeley to get help with this on the mod_perl list. I do know that people have done this successfully under mod_perl, so it may be worth just upgrading (including your perl and LWP versions) and trying it again. There could also be some kind of conflict between Stronghold and Net::SSLeay. There are instructions on the mod_perl site for getting a stack trace, which might help people figure out what's going on.