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LOS ANGELES — A man distraught over a failed relationship “maliciously” started a New Year’s Day fire in the first hours of 2025 that, a week later, metastasized into one of the worst disasters in Los Angeles history, federal prosecutors said in court Wednesday.
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Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, is on trial and accused of three federal charges of destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and timber set afire.
He pleaded not guilty in October and could face up to 45 years in prison if convicted.
Federal prosecutor Matthew O’Brien said Rinderknecht was angry about not getting a New Year’s Eve invite and spent part of the night driving passengers for Uber. After completing a drop-off near a home he once shared with an ex-boyfriend, Rinderknecht climbed to a well-known hiking trail in the Santa Monica Mountains, O’Brien said.
Rinderknecht previously told investigators that the hiking spot, known as Skull Rock, was an “emotional” place for him that held sentimental meaning, O’Brien said.
That exact location is where a small fire started shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025.
The fire, known as the Lachman Fire, was not fully extinguished and continued to smolder undetected deep in root systems before reigniting a week later and becoming the deadly Palisades Fire.
The Lachman Fire burned fewer than 10 acres in open brush and did not damage or destroy any structures.
An after-action fire report indicated that firefighters failed to monitor the Lachman Fire because they thought it was extinguished, despite a red-flag warning for the region.
Rinderknecht’s attorney, Steve Haney, has said his client believes he is being used as a scapegoat for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish the Jan. 1 fire.
“After this trial, there will be one thing missing — proof that Jonathan Rinderknecht started these fires,” Haney said in his opening statements Wednesday.
What caused the Lachman Fire remains central to the case. Prosecutors say Rinderknecht intentionally started it using a green lighter found in his glove compartment and spotted in a video recorded earlier on New Year’s Eve.
Haney countered that Rinderknecht saw a fire start and immediately called 911. Phone records show he called in the emergency at least 16 times, both O’Brien and Haney said in opening statements.
“That’s the voice of a man who’s trying to stop a fire,” Haney said after playing the 911 recordings in court.
But O’Brien said phone and ChatGPT records obtained by investigators indicated that Rinderknecht was a lonely person “angry at the world.”
He argued via text with a romantic interest on New Year’s Eve and called his ex-boyfriend three times, he said. When plans failed to materialize, he canceled rides and hiked to the trailhead he knew so well, prosecutors said.
First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli previously said investigators found an AI-generated image of a burning city on the defendant’s phone.
The Palisades Fire erupted on Jan. 7, 2025, in a hillside behind an affluent community known as the Highlands. Driven by nearly 90 mph winds, the fire quickly spread southwest toward the Palisades village and north into neighboring communities, including parts of Malibu.
It burned more than 24,000 acres, killing 12 people and destroying some 6,800 structures, including state, federal and private property.
At a detention hearing last year, prosecutors argued that Rinderknecht, who once lived in Pacific Palisades, presented “an enormous danger” to the community and behaved carelessly on New Year’s Eve.
Witnesses reported that Rinderknecht had been driving erratically while on Uber routes around the Palisades on Dec. 31, prosecutors said. Passengers described Rinderknecht as “angry, intense, driving erratically, and ranting about being ‘pissed off at the world,’” according to an April pretrial memo filed by the U.S attorney’s office.
Haney denied those claims and said Wednesday that he would introduce witnesses who could attest to his client’s normal behavior that night.
“There was nothing concerning about Jonathan,” Haney said. “Because he used to live there, he hiked up the trailhead to watch the fireworks. He parked his car right there, in plain view. He wasn’t trying to hide it.”
Rinderknecht allegedly ranted to passengers about Luigi Mangione, who is accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare’s CEO, capitalism and vigilantism, The Associated Press reported. Asked by investigators why someone might commit arson in the Palisades, Rinderknecht is alleged to have said, “It would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as we’re basically being enslaved by them.”
Alicia Victoria Lozano is a California-based reporter for NBC News focusing on climate change, wildfires and the changing politics of drug laws.
Madeline Morrison is an associate producer for NBC News.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC
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