{"id":19629,"date":"2025-10-24T22:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T22:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19629\/"},"modified":"2025-10-24T22:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T22:45:09","slug":"man-accused-of-sparking-palisades-fire-had-prior-traffic-stops-in-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/19629\/","title":{"rendered":"Man accused of sparking Palisades Fire had prior traffic stops in Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Los Angeles, 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he started the fire that grew into the deadly and destructive Palisades Fire.<\/p>\n

Before that warrant was even in the system, Rinderknecht had two separate run-ins with police in Palm Bay, Florida \u2014 one in August and another in September.<\/p>\n

During the first traffic stop, an officer pulled him over for driving 71 in a 45. The encounter took a turn when the officer spotted unlabeled pill bottles. \u201cTechnically it\u2019s illegal,\u201d the officer told him. \u201cYou\u2019re walking around with prescription bottles without labels \u2014 with pills in them. You\u2019re going to get yourself hemmed up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rinderknecht said the pills were prescribed for him and went on to tell the officer about the struggles of his delivery job and recent move from California.<\/p>\n

A month later, another Palm Bay officer stopped Rinderknecht for speeding.<\/p>\n

After that stop concluded, someone captured video of Rinderknecht offering Officer Greg Moore some $50 hand lotion \u2014 insisting it contained no cannabis.<\/p>\n

After learning of Rinderknecht\u2019s arrest on federal charges, Officer Moore reflected on his encounter. He told Eyewitness News,<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know who you\u2019re going to stop. He gave me no indication he was a suspect in an arson.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here<\/a> to download our free news, weather and smart TV apps. And click here<\/a> to stream Channel 9 Eyewitness News live.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Los Angeles, 29-year-old Jonathan Rinderknecht pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges that he started the fire that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,15953,9036,15168],"class_list":["post-19629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-greg-moore","tag-palm-bay","tag-rinderknecht"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}