pleaded not guilty<\/a> in court.<\/p>\nRinderknecht\u2019s sister offered him $10,000 to leave her house<\/p>\n
Prosecutors mentioned two incidents during Rinderknecht\u2019s time in Florida when his sister and her husband called 911 because they were concerned about his behavior.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m afraid that when he\u2019s triggered … he might actually use his gun,\u201d his father told law enforcement in body camera footage.<\/p>\n
One time, Rinderknecht got into an argument with his sister after finding out she had cancer, telling her that she should become vegan. <\/p>\n
He also told her he would burn her house down. <\/p>\n
Less than a week later, Rinderknecht had an argument with his father, who was visiting from France, and told him that he had purchased a gun. He said he bought it because his relationship with his sister\u2019s husband was worsening and would use if attacked.<\/p>\n
His sister told law enforcement that he was \u201csensitive and volatile\u201d and they felt like they were \u201cwalking on eggshells\u201d around him, especially with young children in the home, Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Alexander said. <\/p>\n
At one point he told his sister, \u201cIf I wanted to kill you guys I could\u2019ve done that a long time ago,\u201d his sister said in body camera footage. She called him angry, paranoid, and delusional.<\/p>\n
Rinderknecht\u2019s sister and her husband offered to pay for his move back to California and give him $10,000 if he left their home voluntarily, but he refused unless they gave him $25,000, Alexander said. His sister and her husband moved out instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be in the house with my kids with him and a gun,\u201d his sister said in body camera footage.<\/p>\n
Despite these incidents, his father said Rinderknecht\u2019s sister and her husband were willing to have him back in their Florida home, and put up $100,000 for his bond. His father said he and Rinderknecht\u2019s mom were willing to move back from France and watch over him.<\/p>\n
The family is \u201cvery supportive of him,\u201d his father said. \u201cThey are … upset that Jonathan is being accused of things he hasn\u2019t done.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rinderknecht was indicted on one charge of malicious destruction by means of a fire, one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and one count of timber set afire. If convicted, he would face up to 20 years in federal prison.<\/p>\n
His trial is scheduled for April 21, 2026.<\/p>\n
Attorney blames fire department for not putting out initial blaze<\/p>\n
Federal officials called the Palisades blaze a \u201choldover fire\u201d from the Jan. 1 fire that Rinderknecht is accused of starting, which was not fully extinguished by firefighters. LA\u2019s interim fire chief said such fires linger in root systems and can reach depths of 15 to 20 feet (4.6 to 6.1 meters), making them undetectable by thermal imaging cameras.<\/p>\n
Rinderknecht\u2019s attorney Steve Haney has said that even if Rinderknecht was the cause of the initial smaller fire on New Year\u2019s Day, there were several \u201cintervening factors\u201d in the week between that day and when the Palisades Fire ignited, mainly the Los Angeles Fire Department\u2019s response to the fire.<\/p>\n
Haney said after the bond hearing that he\u2019s contemplated whether his client can get a fair trial in Southern California or whether it needs to be held elsewhere. <\/p>\n
\u201cJonathan is being scapegoated for governmental failures,\u201d Haney said. \u201cThere\u2019s no way that the Palisades Fire should have ever happened. It happened because (the LAFD) didn\u2019t do their job.\u201d <\/p>\n
According to text messages obtained by the Los Angeles Times, firefighters mopping up the initial fire were ordered to leave the area even though they complained the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. Mayor Karen Bass\u2019 new pick for fire chief, Jaime Moore, has promised to commission an outside investigation into the matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to get those text messages,\u201d Haney said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 The man accused of sparking the deadly wildfire that ripped through a Los Angeles…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7,175,18,7704,17705,7211,4132,48,52,51,36350,1015,33117,47,4101,50,49,8385,5437,17,535],"class_list":{"0":"post-59806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-fires","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-indictments","12":"tag-jaime-moore","13":"tag-jonathan-rinderknecht","14":"tag-karen-bass","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-la-headlines","17":"tag-la-news","18":"tag-laura-alexander","19":"tag-legal-proceedings","20":"tag-local-news-for-apple","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-los-angeles-area-wildfires","23":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","24":"tag-los-angeles-news","25":"tag-steve-haney","26":"tag-trials","27":"tag-u-s-news","28":"tag-wildfires"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}