LAS VEGAS – A mixed martial arts fighter who changed his name to War Machine was ordered Friday to stand trial in Nevada state court on 34 felony charges including attempted murder, sexual assault and kidnapping that could get him life in prison for allegedly attacking his porn star ex-girlfriend and her friend.
Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver’s leg shackles rattled softly as he sat, bouncing his left leg steadily beneath the defendant’s table, while his ex-girlfriend, Christy Mack, testified she feared he was fetching a knife to finish her off when she ran bruised, bleeding and naked from her house and knocked on neighbours’ doors for help early Aug. 8.
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Mack testified she remembered tasting blood when she came to on the floor of the running shower, and a kick in the abdomen sending her back to the bathroom floor when she tried to get to her feet.
“I couldn’t breathe,” she said. “I don’t remember getting out of the shower. I just remember being on the floor. Naked on the floor. Cold.”
Mack sobbed as she viewed photos of her injuries including a broken nose, missing teeth, fractured eye socket, leg injuries and a lacerated liver. She said she had cut marks on her head, and remembered Koppenhaver inserting a knife in her ear while threatening to kill her.
That knife broke as Koppenhaver cut her hair and wigs, she said. She decided to flee when she heard Koppenhaver in the kitchen rummaging through drawers for another knife.
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