UPDATED (12:05 p.m.): War Machine was convicted on 29 counts.
LAS VEGAS — The jury was continuing deliberations Monday morning in the trial against War Machine.
War Machine, a martial arts fighter who dabbled in porn, was accused of 34 felony counts, including sexual assault, kidnapping, attempted murder and battery, in the August 2014 beating of adult star Christy Mack and her friend, Corey Thomas. In the attack, Mack sustained a broken nose, a blowout fracture to her eye, broken ribs, two broken teeth, a lacerated liver and bruises.
During closing arguments on Thursday, state prosecutor Jacqueline Bluth told jurors that during the Aug. 8, 2014, attack War Machine grabbed a well-used dog blanket and tossed it at Mack as she lay helpless on the floor bleeding from the assault.
"He almost beat her to death," Bluth said. "And he threw a dog blanket on her as she was convulsing from a lacerated liver."
Bluth noted that Mack could have escaped the abusive relationship that included several other incidences of violence besides the Aug. 8 attack. But Bluth also reminded the jury that War Machine could have chosen to end the violence.
"She was in the thick of it and here's the deal: She had the chance to leave, but he had the chance to stop, and only one of those is criminal," she said.
War Machine attorney Jay Leiderman told jurors that he didn’t believe he was guilty of all the crimes he was accused of — including, among others, sexual assault and attempted murder.
"I am not trying to take away her victimhood,” he told jurors. “I am not trying to justify the battery but there are things that happened and things we think the evidence doesn't support happened.”
Leiderman conceded several of the battery charges, assuring that War Machine will serve at least some prison time.
War Machine in January rejected a plea deal with prosecutors. The state offered War Machine two separate deals that would have sent him to prison for 16 years to life or 18 to 40 years.
He has been incarcerated in Clark County, Nev., since his apprehension in Simi Valley, Calif., where he was apprehended one week after the August 2014 attack.
Friday was the first day of deliberations for jurors, but they failed to reach a verdict before the weekend.
Pictured: War Machine
