A depressed and angry Uber driver upset because he had nowhere to go on New Year’s Eve 2025 lit a brush fire on a hillside above Malibu that smoldered for a week and grew into the deadly Palisades Fire, prosecutors told a federal jury Wednesday.
But the defense countered that fireworks were to blame for the fire, and no evidence links Jonathan Rinderknecht to the catastrophic blaze that destroyed billions of dollars of property and killed a dozen people.
During opening statements in the federal arson trial in downtown Los Angeles, prosecutors said Rinderknecht started the fire with a lighter out of resentment of the rich.
“He was alone on New Year’s Eve and very frustrated about that,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew O’Brien said. “And he wanted revenge on society because he blamed society for all his troubles.”
Defense attorney Steven Haney, however, told the jury that his client noticed the brush fire just after midnight on Jan. 1 and immediately began calling for help. But because cellular service was spotty on the hill, he did not get through for more than 10 minutes. Haney played two brief recordings of Rinderknecht calling 911 to report the fire.
“It’s the voice and actions of a man who tried to stop the fire,” Haney said. “No matter what the government’s theory is, the evidence will show Jonathan did not start the Jan. 1 fire.”
Rinderknecht, 30, sat at the defense table un-cuffed, wearing a white shirt and dark suit jacket, taking notes and appearing to pay close to attention to the attorneys.
He pleaded not guilty in October to three arson charges: destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and timber set afire. If convicted of the three counts, he could face up to 45 years behind bars.
At a detention hearing last year, the government argued that the defendant presents “an enormous danger” to the community. Rinderknecht is alleged to have “maliciously” started the fire, and evidence gathered throughout the course of the investigation highlights his “feelings of despair and violent tendencies,” according to court documents.
Haney, though, argued in court papers that his client has been “falsely charged in an epically weak indictment vacant of any direct evidence whatsoever of his guilt. The publicity and infamy associated with this case has the opposite effect of motivating him to flee but instead driving him to fight these false charges and clear his name.”
Haney wrote that there is not “one single shred of evidence” that the fire was intentionally started by Rinderknecht. The Jan. 1 blaze was probably caused by fireworks lit by someone else, Haney said Wednesday.
The trial in Los Angeles federal court is estimated to last between two and three weeks.
O’Brien told the jury that after speaking to an emergency operator on Jan. 1, the defendant “got in his car and fled.” Passing a fire truck making its way up the hill, Rinderknecht turned around and followed.
He then walked up the trail to the clearing where the fire started and watched the blaze, the prosecutor said.
Asked during an interview with federal investigators why someone might commit arson in the Palisades, Rinderknecht allegedly responded “it would be out of resentment of the rich,” O’Brien said.
Haney told jurors that while evidence of the defendant’s internet use would show Rinderknecht’s “social views,” it was an arson case and “there is no physical evidence that connects Jonathan to the act of starting the fire.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office maintains that before his arrest, Rinderknecht was closely following the case of Luigi Mangione, who is charged with fatally shooting Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, in New York City on Dec. 4, 2024. Since the shooting, Mangione has been painted in some circles as a folk hero striking back at the health insurance industry.
A trial memo in Rinderknecht’s case alleges the fire suspect searched for Mangione-related news, using the search terms “free Luigi Mangione,” “lets take down all the billionaires” and “lets kill all the billionaires.”
According to federal prosecutors, law enforcement officials determined that the Palisades Fire was a “holdover” fire — a continuation of the Lachman Fire that began early in the morning on New Year’s Day 2025. Although firefighters quickly suppressed the Lachman Fire, it continued to smolder and burn underground within the root structure of dense vegetation.
On Jan. 7, 2025, hurricane-force Santa Ana winds caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became known as the Palisades Fire. The most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles city history, it burned 23,448 acres and ruined much of the exclusive Pacific Palisades community, destroying about 6,800 structures and killing 12 people.
Using witness statements, video surveillance, cell phone data and analysis of fire dynamics and patterns at the scene, among other things, law enforcement determined that Rinderknecht lit a fire in the chaparral, setting the Lachman Fire just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025, on federal land, O’ Brien said.
The jury heard that on the evening of Dec. 31, 2024, Rinderknecht was working as an Uber driver. Two passengers he drove on separate trips between 10:15 and 11:15 p.m. that night later told law enforcement that they remembered Rinderknecht appeared agitated and angry, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
After dropping off a passenger in Pacific Palisades, Rinderknecht — who grew up in France and once lived in the Palisades neighborhood — drove toward Skull Rock Trailhead, parked his car, attempted to contact a former friend and walked up the trail, court papers allege.
Prosecutors contend he then used his iPhone to take videos at a nearby hilltop area and listened to a rap song — to which he had listened repeatedly in previous days — whose music video included imagery of things being lit on fire.
During a Jan. 24, 2025, interview with law enforcement in Florida, where he relocated after the fire, Rinderknecht allegedly lied about where he was when he first saw the Lachman Fire. He claimed he was near the bottom of a hiking trail when he first saw the fire and called 911, but geolocation data from his iPhone carrier showed that he was standing in a clearing 30 feet from the fire as it rapidly grew, according to federal prosecutors.
During questioning by investigators, according to the trial memo, Rinderknecht was asked why somebody might commit arson in the Palisades. He allegedly answered that one reason might be bitterness toward the wealthy, and he referenced the murder of Thompson. “We’re basically being enslaved by them,” Rinderknecht allegedly told investigators.