The man accused of sparking the Palisades Fire, one of the deadliest wildfires in California history, goes on trial after prosecutors laid out a narrative of his alleged state of mind and the timeline of an initial fire that later flared again. Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, pleaded not guilty, and prosecutors described court filings that they say show anger that escalated into rants during the night before the first blaze was sparked.
According to prosecutors’ court documents, the firefight timeline begins with a Jan. 1, 2025 fire that burned undetected deep in root systems before erupting later. The wildfire then began on Jan. 7 in hillside neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Malibu and killed 12 people, prosecutors said. Rinderknecht’s trial is set to begin June 8.
Prosecutors said Rinderknecht was upset about New Year’s Eve and had no plans for the holiday, and that he expressed anger “at the world” in the period before the initial blaze. Prosecutors said witnesses described him driving erratically on Uber routes around the Palisades on New Year’s Eve, and that passengers characterized him as “angry, intense, driving erratically, and ranting about being ‘pissed off at the world,’” as described in a pretrial memo filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
In the same filings, prosecutors said Rinderknecht ranted to passengers about UnitedHealthcare CEO shooter Luigi Mangione, capitalism, and vigilantism. Prosecutors also said that in an interview with investigators on Jan. 24, when asked why someone might commit arson in the Palisades, Rinderknecht “responded that it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as ‘we’re basically being enslaved by them,’” and again referenced Mangione’s alleged crime, according to the documents.
The prosecutors’ filings also described other emotional factors they say were present, including that Rinderknecht was distraught over a failed relationship and upset about thwarted plans for New Year’s Eve. Rinderknecht’s lawyers, however, dispute the prosecution’s motive framing and aim their response at how the earlier fire was handled by firefighters.
Steve Haney, Rinderknecht’s attorney, said in an email that his client maintains innocence and that the “offered motive” was a weak basis for guilt. Haney, who held a news conference in March seeking release from jail, said evidence in a deposition from a firefighter showed the ground still smoldering from the Jan. 2 fire and that the firefighter had alerted a supervisor about hot spots. In the same defense account, Haney said other testimony indicated a battalion chief walked the perimeter of the burn area four times during the day and ensured hot spots were out.
Haney said that this evidence was not available to the defense when Rinderknecht was indicted, and prosecutors said the prosecution strategy outlined in a late April pretrial memo includes details about the defendant’s alleged mindset leading up to the initial blaze. Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore, who was appointed in October, has said he is concerned about differences between firefighters’ testimonies and commissioned an independent report on how the Jan. 1 fire was handled.