Los Angeles (United States) (AFP) – The man accused of starting a fire that grew into one of the deadly blazes that tore through Los Angeles in January 2025 pleaded not guilty Wednesday as authorities made a second attempt to prosecute him. The earlier trial of Jonathan Rinderknecht collapsed after a jury deadlocked on whether or not he was responsible for the Palisades fire that laid waste to the upmarket coastal enclave and nearby Malibu.
Public prosecutors in America’s second biggest city, unhappy about the result, leveled new charges: destruction of property by means of fire and arson affecting property used in interstate commerce. Rinderknecht, who remains in federal custody, denied both charges. His trial was set for November 2.
Investigators say the suspect, who was working as a rideshare driver at the time, set a blaze on New Year’s Eve, angry at the opulence of an area that contains some of the priciest addresses on the US West Coast. Firefighters believed they had extinguished it, but now say it flared again a week later in strong winds, at the same time as another blaze — the Eaton Fire — was racing through a different part of greater Los Angeles. A total of 31 people died in the two fires, which destroyed thousands of homes and upended life across America’s second biggest city.
After a three-week trial in June, the jury in Los Angeles deliberated for two days before declaring itself deadlocked on the original charges. Rinderknecht’s lawyers argued in the trial that he was a Good Samaritan who had called emergency services to report the initial fire, maintaining that the blaze had actually been sparked by fireworks. They also depicted him as a scapegoat whose prosecution was being used to cover up the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to extinguish the initial fire.
© 2024 AFP
