By Steve Gorman
June 26 (Reuters) – A federal judge declared a mistrial on Friday in the arson case brought against the man accused of deliberately setting a blaze that grew into one of the deadliest, most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles history, but prosecutors vowed to retry him.
All three felony counts leveled against Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, were dismissed after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked and unable to reach a unanimous verdict on any of the charges.
The U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Bill Essayli, swiftly announced his office intended to renew its case against Rinderknecht, a former Uber driver of dual U.S.-French citizenship who once lived in the fire zone.
“The evidence is strong that Jonathan Rinderknecht is responsible for igniting the fire on January 1, 2025, which eventually became the Palisades fire. We fully intend to retry this case before a new jury and obtain guilty verdicts on all charged counts,” Essayli said in a statement posted on X.
A detention hearing was set for later in the day to determine the immediate custody status for Rinderknecht, who has remained jailed since his arrest in Florida in October 2025.
TRIAL FEATURED COMPETING NARRATIVES
The mistrial capped a high-profile, three-week trial in which prosecutors branded Rinderknecht a malcontent loner who channeled the rage he felt toward the rich and society at large into an act of arson.
The defense countered by suggesting Rinderknecht was made a scapegoat for the failings of the fire department, and by disputing the official origin story of a conflagration that killed 12 people and laid waste to the upscale seaside enclave of Pacific Palisades.
He had pleaded not guilty to all charges in the three-count indictment returned against him in October — destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and burning timber on public land.
Rinderknecht, who declined to testify in his own defense during the trial, would face a penalty of up to 45 years in prison if found guilty as charged.
Jurors informed U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang in a note on Thursday afternoon that they were stalemated in attempts to reach a consensus, the Los Angeles City News Service and other local news media reported.
The judge sent the jurors home for the night, then declared a mistrial on Friday morning after the proceeding resumed.
FIRE RANKED AMONG CALIFORNIA’S DEADLIEST
Rinderknecht was accused of starting a brush fire that was suppressed relatively quickly but continued to smolder underground beneath dense scrub before re-igniting six days later, on January 7, whipped by fierce winds into the devastating Palisades fire.
Nearly 7,000 homes and other structures went up in flames, with property losses estimated at $150 billion.
The disaster coincided with another catastrophic wind-driven wildfire, apparently sparked by a downed power line, which erupted on January 7 in Eaton Canyon about 30 miles inland, killing 19 people and ravaging the suburban Los Angeles community of Altadena.
Rinderknecht was the only person criminally charged in connection with either of the two blazes, which together rank as the deadliest wildfire calamity in Los Angeles County history, surpassing the 29 lives lost in the Griffith Park fire of 1933.
DEFENSE POINTED TO FIREWORKS
Defense lawyer Steve Haney sought to convince jurors that the hilltop New Year’s Day blaze near a hiking trail at the edge of Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was triggered by holiday fireworks, not Rinderknecht. Haney also argued that the massive Palisades fire was a separate arson fire perpetrated by someone other than his client.
The prosecution case had hinged on arson investigators’ official determination that the Palisades catastrophe sprang from a “holdover fire” — a blaze that keeps burning at low intensity below the soil line after it is presumed extinguished.
In this case, prosecutors said, the fire originally set by Rinderknecht continued smoldering in a thicket of roots beneath the surface, undetected for nearly a week, before hurricane-force Santa Ana winds fanned the flames back above ground.
Security camera footage and geolocation data from Rinderknecht’s own cellphone established he was the only person in the vicinity of the fire when it erupted shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, according to prosecutors.
‘SOCIETAL REVENGE’
Rinderknecht told investigators under questioning prior to his arrest that he was walking alone in the area at the time the fire began and may have smoked a cigarette or two in a nearby clearing, but he denied setting any fire, according to trial testimony cited by CNS.
In terms of motive, prosecutors cast Rinderknecht as an isolated malcontent, resentful of the wealthy and driven to channel his quest for “societal revenge” and anger over failed relationships and financial struggles into an act of arson.
Jurors listened to a recording from portions of a rambling interview Rinderknecht gave to arson investigators in which he blamed corporate executives for an “unbalanced” system, telling the agents, “this is what I disrupted.”
Testimony also pointed to a fixation with fire, including images in a French-language rap music video that prosecutors said Rinderknecht repeatedly watched depicting the singer setting things ablaze, and footage Rinderknecht took with his cellphone of the New Year’s fire while it was burning.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Kevin Buckland and Matthew Lewis)
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