War Machine returns to Vegas court over probation violations

Jonathan Koppenhaver, the former Bellator MMA and Ultimate Fighting Championship fighter known as War Machine, was back in a Las Vegas courtroom Tuesday.

Probation violations

Prosecutors said Koppenhaver, who faces dozens of domestic battery-related charges from incidents between May 2013 and August, violated his probation in connection with a 2012 conviction of attempt to commit battery with substantial bodily harm.

Koppenhaver was arrested last month in the alleged beating of his porn star ex-girlfriend Christy Mack and her friend Corey Thomas.

On Tuesday, Koppenhaver said he wants California attorney Brandon Sua to represent him in both cases, and District Court Judge Valerie Adair postponed a hearing to revoke Koppenhaver’s probation until November.

That would give the judge time to review transcripts of a preliminary hearing scheduled for Oct. 17, in which Mack is expected to testify about the abuse she endured.

Koppenhaver pleaded guilty in September 2011 in connection with an attack on a patron at the now-closed gay nightclub Krave, where he had been hired to work as a topless bottle server in the VIP lounge.

In February 2012, Adair placed Koppenhaver on probation for five years, but made him spend a year in the Clark County Detention Center. If he violated the probation, the judge ruled that he could face up to four years in prison.

Prosecutors have said that, in the allegations of abuse against Mack and Thomas, Koppenhaver faces life in prison without the possibility of parole on charges including attempted murder, sexual assault, battery, coercion, preventing or dissuading a witness or victim from reporting a crime, and first-degree kidnapping resulting in substantial bodily harm.

Las Vegas Review-Journal