Man accused of $37 billion LA Fire is innocent, his lawyer says

(Bloomberg) — Jonathan Rinderknecht was wrongfully accused of starting the deadliest wildfire in Los Angeles history, his lawyer told a jury.

Rinderknecht was watching New Year’s Eve fireworks on a hillside in Pacific Palisades and called 911 just after midnight on the morning of Jan. 1, 2025, as a “concerned citizen” to report a brush fire, only to be charged with arson nine months later, defense attorney Steve Haney said at the start of his client’s trial in Los Angeles federal court.

“There will be no evidence that Jonathan Rinderknecht started the fire,” Haney said. The evidence “will show panic, show confusion, show a frightened young man repeatedly and desperately calling for help from the hillside.”

Federal prosecutors told jurors that Rinderknecht went on a hike to a spot known as Hidden Buddha Hill, above a neighborhood full of multimillion-dollar homes stretching up the Malibu coast, and intentionally lit a fire in the bushes with a barbecue lighter later found in his car.

In his opening statement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew O’Brien showed jurors large images taken from security cameras that showed the fire erupting that night. He said investigators tracked Rinderknecht’s movements while he was using his cell phone. The data placed Rinderknecht at what investigators later determined was the scene of the fire, O’Brien said.

The fire he is accused of starting, known as the Lachman Fire, was contained by firefighters, but on January 7, 2025, it was reportedly rekindled by hurricane-force winds that turned into a massive fire, the Palisades Fire, which killed at least 12 people, damaged more than 23,000 acres, and destroyed nearly 800 acres. Insurable losses from the fire were estimated by Gallagher Re at $23 billion, while total economic losses were projected at $37 billion.

Rinderknecht, who lived in the area, worked as an Uber driver and dropped off passengers near where the fire started, according to the government.

Haney claims Rinderknecht was made a “scapegoat” for firefighters’ failure to fully extinguish the Jan. 1 fire before its embers ignited six days later.

The government claims that Rinderknecht wanted to destroy.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli’s office said in a court filing that Rinderknecht’s Uber passengers on New Year’s Eve recalled him looking upset and sounding upset that he had no plans for the evening after a failed relationship.

A forensic examination of Rinderknecht’s computer also revealed that he “became increasingly angry with his life and society at large,” according to prosecutors, who said he became “fixated on Luigi Mangione,” an Ivy League graduate who many viewed as an anti-corporate hero after he was charged in December 2024 with the shooting death of a Manhattan health insurance executive.

When Rinderknecht was questioned by investigators days after the fire about why someone would commit arson in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, prosecutors said, he “replied that it would be out of spite for the rich enjoying their money because ‘we’re basically enslaved by them.'”

U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang, who is presiding over the trial, blocked both sides from presenting evidence she deemed irrelevant or inflammatory.

Haney will not be allowed to present testimony from a firefighter that crews were ordered to leave the area where the fire started and reportedly reignited several days later, despite several persistent hot spots.

A judge barred the government from showing jurors AI-generated images of the burning city that prosecutors say were created by Rinderknecht months before the fire. Haney called the ChatGPT images “very, very harmful”.

Rinderknecht is charged with three counts, including destruction of property by fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and burning wood.

The trial is expected to last about 10 days. If convicted, Rinderknecht faces up to 45 years in prison.

The case is U.S. v. Rinderknecht, 25-cr-833, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).

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