@awoods: This seems to work due to default encoding in the modeshape jcr Path class.

From the API
"Because of this encoding and decoding issue, there is no standard representation of a path as a string. Instead, this class uses text encoders to escape certain characters when writing to a string or unescaping the string representation. These encoders and used only with individual segments, and therefore are not used to encode the delimiter. Three standard encoders are provided, although others can certainly be used:"

Our default encoder is org.modeshape.common.text.Jsr283Encoder
"an encoder and decoder that is compliant with JSR-283 by converting the reserved characters (namely '*', '/', ':', '[', ']' and '|') to their unicode equivalent."

If I put the statements

LOGGER.debug("findRolesForPath getString: {}", absPath.getString());
LOGGER.debug("findRolesForPath toString: {}", absPath.toString());
LOGGER.debug("findRolesForPath No encoder: {}", absPath.getString(Path.NO_OP_ENCODER));

I get the results.

DEBUG 11:33:01.997 (WebACRolesProvider) findRolesForPath getString: /{httpwww.jcp.orgjcr1.0}system/{httpwww.jcp.orgjcr1.0}versionStorage/{}e1/{}af/{}50/{}e1af507231ebb2b25964bc53badfd3a0bef96f58/{}1.0
DEBUG 11:33:01.997 (WebACRolesProvider) findRolesForPath toString: /{http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0}system/{http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0}versionStorage/{}e1/{}af/{}50/{}e1af507231ebb2b25964bc53badfd3a0bef96f58/{}1.0
DEBUG 11:33:01.998 (WebACRolesProvider) findRolesForPath No encoder: /{http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0}system/{http://www.jcp.org/jcr/1.0}versionStorage/{}e1/{}af/{}50/{}e1af507231ebb2b25964bc53badfd3a0bef96f58/{}1.0

So if you prefer I can change the toString to getString with the NO_OP_ENCODER.