Florida man charged with starting deadly Palisades fire in LA
Alan Riquelmy
LOS ANGELES (CN) — A man federal authorities say started the blaze that became the deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles is in custody, officials announced Wednesday.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, of Melbourne, Florida, faces a charge of destruction of property by means of fire. Arrested in Florida on Tuesday, he made his initial appearance in federal court in Orlando on Wednesday, acting U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli said.
The judge in Florida made no decision about bond, and Rinderknecht is set to again appear in court for a detention hearing Thursday morning, Essayli’s office said.
Essayli said this past New Year’s Eve, Rinderknecht — a driver for Uber — dropped off a passenger on Palisades Drive in Pacific Palisades. The passenger later told authorities Rinderknecht seemed agitated and angry.
Rinderknecht then parked his car, tried to contact a former friend and walked up a trail to a hilltop, Essayli said. The suspect used his phone to listen to a French rap song with a theme authorities described in a criminal complaint as despairing and bitter, while a music video for the song depicts the artist setting things on fire.
Then, at 12:12 a.m. New Year’s Day, he started the fire with an open flame that a week later, after smoldering underground, would become the Palisades Fire, Essayli said.
“We have not determined all the charges that he will face,” Essayli said during a press conference, adding the case will go to a grand jury. “We wanted to arrest him. We wanted to get him in custody.”
Essayli said a series of digital clues led authorities to Rinderknecht, who at some point moved from Palisades to Florida.
Months before the fire, Rinderknecht used ChatGPT to create what Essayli called a dystopian image of a burning forest and people fleeing. Additionally, geolocation information from Rinderknecht’s cellphone places him at the flashpoint of the fire. Sensors detected the blaze almost immediately, no fireworks were used and no one else was in the area at the time.
Authorities say in a criminal complaint that moments after starting the fire, Rinderknecht asked ChatGPT if someone could be at fault for igniting a blaze with a cigarette.
Rinderknecht has no criminal history, Essayli said.
“He did speak to us and he made false statements. We’re not going to get into motive right now," Essayli said, later adding, “We will prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he started this fire."
Rinderknecht spoke with authorities Jan. 24. According to the criminal complaint, he told them where another wildfire had started Jan. 1, very close to where the Palisades Fire blew up a week later — information that wasn’t public at the time. And he also told authorities where he discovered the fire, though this statement was inconsistent with geolocation data gained from his phone, according to the complaint.
“Today’s arrest of 29-year-old Florida resident Jonathan Rinderknecht marks an important step toward uncovering how the horrific Palisades Fire began and bringing closure to the thousands of Californians whose lives were upended,” Governor Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “The state will continue to fully support this investigation and we look forward to the findings of the independent after-action report we’ve commissioned from the nation’s leading fire safety researchers.”
The fires that erupted on Jan. 7 in the Pacific Palisades, an affluent neighborhood at the foot of the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the ocean, and in Altadena, an eclectic enclave nestled against the San Gabriel Mountains east of downtown LA, were the most devastating wildfires in the city’s history.
The firestorms, fanned by extreme winds and fueled by parched vegetation in the canyons, destroyed most of the neighborhoods. They are estimated to have caused more than $250 billion in economic damage, making them the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. Cleaning up and rebuilding the devastated parts of the city will take years.