Prosecutors mentioned the person they charged with beginning the lethal 2025 Palisades Hearth in Los Angeles was upset a couple of failed relationship and never having New 12 months’s Eve plans simply earlier than he set a small blaze which rekindled six days later.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, who is about to go to trial June 8, “exhibited excessive anger, indignation, and frustration about being unable to search out companionship on New 12 months’s Eve,” prosecutors within the workplace of Los Angeles U.S. Legal professional Invoice Essayli mentioned in a court docket submitting. They mentioned he tried and didn’t make plans for that evening with two different individuals.
“On New 12 months’s Eve 2024, defendant was alone once more,” in line with the submitting. Rinderknecht, who labored as an Uber driver, dropped off passengers within the Palisades space that evening, then hiked up a hillside the place proof reveals he set a hearth with a BIC barbecue lighter later present in his automobile, the federal government alleges.
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The Palisades Hearth that broke out on Jan. 7 finally killed 12 individuals and destroyed hundreds of houses in one of many wealthiest elements of Los Angeles. That conflagration plus one other that began on the identical day on the opposite aspect of Los Angeles County rank among the many costliest within the insurance-industry’s historical past, with mixed estimated financial losses of $65 billion, in line with insurer Gallagher Re.
If convicted, Rinderknecht could be chargeable for one of many nation’s costliest wildfire arsons. The U.S. has mentioned he faces so long as 45 years in jail if discovered responsible.
Prosecutors submitted a 25-page memo to the court docket Wednesday outlining the proof they search to make use of at trial, together with statements Rinderknecht made to investigators and skilled testimony in regards to the hearth’s trigger.
“I preserve my shopper’s innocence,” Steven Haney, Rinderknecht’s lawyer, mentioned in an electronic mail. “No misguided principle from the federal government will change the dearth of proof displaying my shopper began or was chargeable for both of the fires for which he’s charged. We look ahead to proving it at trial.”
Rinderknecht “grew to become more and more indignant along with his life and society at massive,” in line with prosecutors who mentioned he additionally grew to become “fixated on Luigi Mangione,” the Ivy League graduate charged with gunning down a UnitedHealth Group Inc. government in Manhattan in December 2024.
A forensic assessment of Rinderknecht’s laptop confirmed his looked for “Mangione-related information” utilizing phrases like “free Luigi Mangione,” “lets take down all of the billionaires,” and “reddit lets kill all of the billionaires,” in line with the submitting.
When Rinderknecht was questioned by investigators days after the fireplace about why somebody would commit arson within the Palisades neighborhood, prosecutors mentioned, he “responded it will be out of resentment of the wealthy having fun with their cash as ‘we’re principally being enslaved by them’ and in contrast such an act of ‘desperation’ to the homicide for which Mangione was charged.”
Rinderknecht, who had lived within the Pacific Palisades space, dropped off an Uber passenger close to the place the fireplace began, the US mentioned. A federal investigator decided the fireplace began shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025, and Rinderknecht referred to as 911 whereas standing about 30 ft away, prosecutors mentioned.
The federal government says the small “holdover” hearth allegedly ignited by Rinderknecht alongside a path in Topanga State Park smoldered underground after firefighters mentioned they’d extinguished it and morphed into a significant conflagration throughout excessive winds.
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Haney seeks to current proof that Los Angeles hearth officers “negligently deserted an lively, smoldering burn scar for six days — regardless of lively sizzling spots, red-hot coals, and audible crackling noticed and documented by LAFD’s personal firefighters” that allowed the Jan. 1 hearth to “rekindle into the Palisades Hearth,” in line with a protection submitting.
The U.S. is looking for to name skilled witnesses to refute theories that the Palisades Hearth was began by fireworks or by downed energy strains.
The hearth, one of the vital harmful in California historical past, has additionally led to a flurry of lawsuits in opposition to the Los Angeles Division of Water and Energy Water, the largest municipal utility within the U.S. Some residents who misplaced houses, companies and family members alleged the utility didn’t take acceptable security measures in an space extremely weak to wildfires.
Prime picture: A couple of houses stay intact after the Palisades Hearth within the Pacific Palisades space of Los Angeles, in January 2025. Photographer: Jill Connelly/Bloomberg.
Copyright 2026 Bloomberg.
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