Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver, who legally changed his name to War Machine, received a sentence life in prison with the possibility of parole after 36 years for the kidnapping and rape of his ex-girlfriend, Christy Mack.
During his sentencing, he compared himself to the late Aaron Hernandez and said he “should have killed himself by now” before he was sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping and sexually assaulting Mack.
The earliest that 35-year-old War Machine could get out of prison will be at 71 years old, after he was convicted on 29 of 34 charges for the crimes against Mack, who he also threatened to murder.
While giving a statement on Monday, June 5, War Machine referred to the late Aaron Hernandez, the former NFL player who committed suicide in a Massachusetts prison in April, saying:
“I should have killed myself by now. There’s no reason right now that I shouldn’t be in the dirt right now laying next to Aaron Hernandez. That’s 100%true.”
“Not a day goes by that I don’t seriously regret all those things that I did. I was a very, very lost, very empty person. And to top it off, something’s not right with my head. Plain and simple. I’ve known that a long time and I’ve hated it. I’ve hated the way that I think.”
The August 2014 assault began when War Machine burst into a bedroom and found Mack in bed with another man, Corey Thomas. Machine began attacking Thomas for roughly 10 minutes, biting him and putting him in a choke hold. War Machine eventually let Thomas leave, ordering him not to call the police.
This is when he turned his attention to Mack, who was left with a broken nose, missing teeth, fractured eye socket, leg injuries, and a lacerated liver. Mack says she escaped when she thought Koppenhaver was in the kitchen getting a knife to ‘finish her off,’ running naked and bleeding to neighbors’ homes.
War Machine was arrested in the Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley a week after the attack in Las Vegas and originally pleaded not guilty to the 34 charges.
