Man accused of sparking Los Angeles’ deadly Palisades Fire appears in court ahead of arson trial

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades Fire in Los Angeles appeared in court on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing ahead of his arson trial next month.

Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, has pleaded not guilty to starting what became one of the most destructive wildfires in California history. It began Jan. 7, 2025, and burned through the hillside neighborhoods of Pacific Palisades and Malibu, eventually killing 12 people. Prosecutors say Rinderknecht started a fire on Jan. 1 that burned undetected deep in root systems before flaring back up a week later.

Rinderknecht’s trial is set to begin June 8. His attorneys say he is being used as a scapegoat for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish the earlier blaze.

An outline of the prosecutors’ strategy — with details about the defendant’s alleged state of mind on the night before the first fire began — appeared in an April 29 pretrial memo filed by the U.S. attorney’s office. Prosecutors will claim he was upset that he didn’t have plans for New Year’s Eve and ranted about being angry at the world before the initial blaze was sparked.

Rinderknecht’s attorney Steve Haney has maintained his client’s innocence. Haney held a news conference in March pointing to a deposition in which a firefighter testified that he noticed the ground was still smoldering from the fire on Jan. 2 and alerted a supervisor that there were hot spots despite the fact that crews had left the scene. That testimony was gathered as part of a lawsuit filed by fire victims against the city.

Haney has said this evidence was not available to the defense when Rinderknecht was indicted last October.