I used the Encode module and did the following: 
$cleaned_output = decode_utf8( $command_output );
$cleaned_output =~ s/\0//g;

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This removed all the null unicode characters and left me with /r/r/n for the empty return string. I gained some insight from the following article: Unicode-processing issues in Perl

In reply to Re^4: Unicode character handling with Net::Telnet::Cisco by josh803316
in thread Unicode character handling with Net::Telnet::Cisco by josh803316

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