LA Palisades Fire Jury Fails to Reach Verdict in Arson Trial
A federal jury failed to reach a verdict in the arson case over the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history.
U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang declared a mistrial after jurors told her Friday they were divided and unable to reach a unanimous decision in the case of Jonathan Rinderknecht. Hwang scheduled a retrial for Oct. 19 at the request of prosecutors.
Prosecutors alleged that Rinderknecht was lonely and resentful toward society and used a barbecue lighter to start a brush fire on a Pacific Palisades hillside just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025. The government said the blaze smoldered underground after it was contained and re-ignited into a firestorm six days later.
Rinderknecht, 30, maintained his innocence, with his lawyer alleging before the trial that he was a scapegoat for the failure of firefighters to fully extinguish the initial blaze.
The Palisades Fire that was whipped by hurricane force winds on Jan. 7, 2025, killed at least 12 people, charred more than 23,000 acres and destroyed or damaged almost 8,000 structures in one of the city’s wealthiest enclaves. Insured losses from the fire were estimated by Gallagher Re at $23 billion, while total economic losses were projected at $37 billion.
At the end of the second full day of deliberations after a two-week trial, the jury foreperson told the judge Thursday afternoon the panel was hopelessly deadlocked. The 12-person panel’s vote was 10 for acquittal and two for conviction. Early Friday, after huddling with lawyers on both sides, the judge decided to dismiss the jury.
Related: Man Accused of $37 Billion LA Fire Is Innocent, His Lawyer Says
The failure to win a conviction is a high-profile setback for the office of acting US Attorney Bill Essayli, who has had a rocky tenure as the Trump administration’s top prosecutor in the nation’s second-largest city.
After Essayli said Friday he will pursue a retrial, Rinderknecht’s lawyer, Steve Haney, challenged Essayli to try the case himself.
“Maybe he can come and try it next time,” the defense attorney said.
The judge granted a request by prosecutors to keep Rinderknecht in custody until the retrial.
It was a difficult case for government because it was to hold Rinderknecht criminally responsible both for starting a fire on Jan. 1 and for causing the subsequent catastrophe six days later, said Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles.
“The government did a good job of dirtying up Rinderknecht, as someone who wanted to wage war against the rich and, as one witness described, as having ‘Incel energy,'” said Rahmani, who now heads the Los Angeles-based West Coast Trial Lawyers firm. “But being weird or being an Incel doesn’t make you an arsonist.”
Rinderknecht faced three counts: destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting interstate commerce and a charge of timber set afire. If he had been convicted of all charges, he would have faced a sentence of as long as 45 years in prison.
The trial’s outcome doesn’t resolve the legal fallout from the Palisades Fire. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power faces thousands of claims from home and business owners accusing the country’s largest municipal utility of failing to supply enough water to fight the conflagration as it spread from the hillside to Malibu on the coast. The utility, in turn, is trying to shift blame to state park officials for not adequately suppressing the Jan. 1 fire.
In closing arguments, Assistant U.S. Attorney Danbee Kim said Rinderknecht’s anger and distaste with society festered to the point that he acted out after finding himself alone for the holiday.
“As the rest of the world rang in the New Year, the defendant lit a fire in the brush,” Kim told jurors. “When it resurfaced six days later on Jan. 7, it devastated the city. It spread to houses. Neighborhoods. People’s businesses. It destroyed thousands of people’s livelihoods.”
Haney argued that the government stitched together “fragmented” evidence and attacked his client’s character when authorities couldn’t prove their case.
“When the government can’t prove, ladies and gentlemen, what a man did, they go to work on who he is,” Haney said.
Firefighter Testimony
The defense argued the Jan. 1 fire could have been caused by fireworks. Jurors heard conflicting testimony from firefighters. One said he saw flashes of light and heard fireworks in the area shortly before and after midnight on New Year’s Eve, while another said he didn’t.
Prosecutors played an audio clip for the jury of Rinderknecht’s 8 1/2-hour pre-arrest interview with law enforcement in which he said he did not see pyrotechnics on the hill that evening.
The judge barred the defense from raising allegations of negligence by the fire department, saying it was not relevant and could confuse jurors.
Prosecutors alleged that a raft of evidence connected Rinderknecht to the first blaze, the Lachman Fire, including surveillance footage from a nearby water tank that captured images of him on the hillside just before the fire started. Geolocation data showed he used his iPhone as a flashlight as he walked up the crest near the fire’s origin.
Officials also recovered data from Rinderknecht’s devices that they said revealed Google searches for “kill all the billionaires” and “fires burning against a wealthy city.” A behavioral analyst testified that he found Rinderknecht fit the profile of an arsonist who sought “societal revenge.”
Rinderknecht worked as an Uber driver on New Year’s Eve and several of his passengers testified he seemed agitated. One said he had praised Luigi Mangione, who became an anti-corporate hero to some after he was charged fatally shooting a health insurance executive outside a Manhattan hotel in 2024.
Haney emphasized that no eyewitnesses saw Rinderknecht actually light the fire and argued that his client’s numerous attempts to dial 911 to report the blaze showed that he was a concerned citizen.
On the front steps of the courthouse, one of the jurors told reporters there wasn’t enough evidence to conclude Rinderknecht started the Jan. 1 fire.
“But say he did, I don’t see why everybody else’s negligence of doing things incorrectly where he needs to be responsible for the whole Palisades,” said the juror, Syrena, 49, who declined to give her last name. “I’m not going to put somebody down for that entire thing. A lot happened there.”
The case is U.S. v. Rinderknecht, 25-cr-00833, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).
Top photo: A police vehicle drives past active fire during the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles on Jan. 7, 2025. Photographer: Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg.