By Steve Gorman<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The man arrested on suspicion of deliberately setting the blaze that would spark one of the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history was indicted on three arson-related charges on Wednesday, adding two felonies to the criminal case he already faced in federal court.<\/p>\n
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, is accused of “maliciously” starting a fire on January 1 that was quickly suppressed but continued to smolder beneath dense vegetation before reigniting a week later amid fierce winds, exploding into a major conflagration that killed 12 people and laid waste to the wealthy seaside enclave of Pacific Palisades.<\/p>\n
Rinderknecht was arrested earlier this month in Florida and initially charged by federal prosecutors in a criminal complaint with one count of destruction of property by means of fire, an offense punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison.<\/p>\n
A federal grand jury in Los Angeles on Wednesday returned a three-count indictment charging Rinderknecht with the destruction of property count and two additional felonies – one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and one count of timber set afire.<\/p>\n
If convicted as charged, he would face a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a statutory maximum sentence of 45 years behind bars, according to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n
Rinderknecht, who remains jailed without bond, is expected to enter a plea at his arraignment, which will likely occur in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles in the coming weeks, the DOJ said.<\/p>\n
Bringing an indictment spares federal prosecutors the procedural requirement of presenting their case to a judge in a preliminary hearing in order to show they have sufficient evidence establishing probable cause to proceed to trial.<\/p>\n
The Palisades fire was among the most devastating on record in Los Angeles, destroying some 6,000 structures and causing $150 billion in property damage, while coinciding with another massive wind-driven blaze about 35 miles (56.3 km) to the east known as the Eaton Fire that wiped out much of the community of Altadena.<\/p>\n
According to prosecutors, Rinderknecht had been working as an Uber driver on New Year’s Eve before dropping a passenger off and heading to a hilltop trail near Pacific Palisades, where he once lived. Once there, according to court documents, he listened to a rap song whose music video depicted things being set on fire, then proceeded to set a real blaze shortly after midnight and fled the scene, only to return a short time later to watch the flames and firefighters.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Stephen Coates)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The man arrested on suspicion of deliberately setting the blaze that would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[7336,7337,7334,48,52,51,47,50,49,534,7335],"class_list":["post-7115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-destruction-of-property","tag-federal-court","tag-federal-prosecutors","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-pacific-palisades","tag-rinderknecht"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7115","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=7115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}