Prosecutors said the man accused of starting the deadly Palisades fire in Los Angeles in 2025 was upset over a failed relationship and having no New Year’s Eve plans just before he started a small fire that reignited six days later.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, who is scheduled to go on trial June 8, “expressed extreme anger, resentment and frustration at not being able to find company on New Year’s Eve,” prosecutors in Los Angeles U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli’s office said in a court filing. They said he tried and failed to make plans with two other people that night.
“On New Year’s Eve 2024, the defendant was alone again,” the filing states. Rinderknecht, who worked as an Uber driver, dropped off passengers in the Palisades area that night, then headed to a hillside where evidence shows he lit a BIC lighter on a grill that was later found in his car, the government alleges.
The Palisades Fire, which broke out on January 7, eventually killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in one of Los Angeles’ most affluent neighborhoods.
Prosecutors filed a 25-page brief in court Wednesday that outlined the evidence they want to use at trial, including statements Rinderknecht made to investigators and expert testimony about the cause of the fire.
“I maintain my client’s innocence,” Steven Haney, Rinderknecht’s attorney, said in an email. “No amount of misguided theory from the government is going to change the lack of evidence that my client started or was responsible for one of the fires he is charged with. We look forward to proving that in court.”
Rinderknecht “became increasingly angry with his life and society at large,” according to prosecutors, who said he also became “fixated on Luigi Mangione,” the Ivy League graduate accused of shooting a UnitedHealth Group Inc. executive. in Manhattan in December 2024.
A forensic examination of Rinderknecht’s computer showed that he searched for “Mangione-related messages” using terms such as “free Luigi Mangione,” “let’s take down all the billionaires” and “reddit lets kill all the billionaires,” the filing said.
When Rinderknecht was questioned by investigators days after the fire about why someone would commit arson in the Palisades neighborhood, prosecutors said he “replied that it would be out of spite for the rich who enjoy their money because ‘we’re basically enslaved by them,’ and likened such an act of ‘desperation’ to the murder Mangione was charged with.”
Rinderknecht, who lived in the Pacific Palisades area, dropped off an Uber passenger near where the fire started, the US said. A federal investigator found the fire started shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025, and Rinderknecht called 911 while standing about 30 feet away, prosecutors said.
The government says a small “holding” fire allegedly started by Rinderknecht along a trail in Topanga State Park smoldered underground after firefighters said they extinguished it and turned into a large fire during high winds.
Haney is seeking to present evidence that Los Angeles firefighters “negligently left an active, smoldering burn scar for six days — despite active hot spots, glowing embers and audible popping observed and documented by LAFD’s own firefighters,” allowing the Jan. 1 fire to “rekindle the Palisades Fire,” according to a statement of defense.
The US is trying to call expert witnesses to refute theories that the Palisades fire was started by fireworks or downed power lines.
LA fire victims sue utilities. What’s at stake?: QuickTake
The fire, one of the most destructive in California history, also led to a wave of lawsuits against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Water, the largest utility company in the US. Some residents who lost homes, businesses and loved ones claimed the utility failed to take adequate safety precautions in an area highly vulnerable to wildfires.
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