The man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles appeared in court on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing ahead of his arson trial next month. Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, has pleaded not guilty to starting what became one of the most destructive wildfires in California history.
The fire began on January 7, 2025, and burned through the hillside neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Malibu, eventually killing 12 people. Prosecutors allege that Rinderknecht started a fire on January 1 that burned undetected deep in root systems before flaring back up a week later.
Rinderknecht’s trial is set to begin June 8. His attorneys claim he is being used as a scapegoat for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish the earlier blaze. An outline of the prosecution’s strategy appeared in an April 29 pretrial memo filed by the U.S. attorney’s office, detailing the defendant’s alleged state of mind on the night before the first fire began. Prosecutors will argue that he was upset about not having plans for New Year's Eve and ranted about being angry at the world before the initial blaze was sparked.
Rinderknecht’s attorney, Steve Haney, has maintained his client’s innocence. In March, Haney held a news conference pointing to a deposition in which a firefighter testified that the ground was still smoldering from the fire on January 2 and that he alerted a supervisor about hot spots despite crews having left the scene. This testimony was gathered as part of a lawsuit filed by fire victims against the city. Haney said this evidence was not available to the defense when Rinderknecht was indicted last October.
