Berliner Tageblatt - LA fire suspect had grudge against wealthy: prosecutors

Jonathan Rinderknecht is set to stand trial on June 8 for starting the "Palisades Fire," which claimed the lives of 12 of the 31 people who perished as blazes tore through the Los Angeles area in January 2025.

In court documents filed last week, prosecutors portray him as an Uber driver outraged by capitalism, who allegedly set fire to the Pacific Palisades neighborhood -- a celebrity enclave where ocean-view villas are worth millions -- as an act of revenge.

Two weeks before the act, the suspect's internet search history listed queries such as "let's take down all the billionaires."

He also searched using the slogan "Free Luigi Mangione" —- the man federal prosecutors say gunned down the chief executive of United Healthcare.

Mangione has been hailed in some quarters of the internet as a latter-day Robin Hood, fighting against a rigged system on behalf of working people.

"Many of defendant’s Uber passengers on December 31, 2024 and January 1, 2025, described defendant as angry, intense, driving erratically, and ranting about being 'pissed off at the world' and Luigi Mangione, capitalism, and vigilantism," documents said.

Rinderknecht has denied all charges.

Prosecution documents say that during an interrogation in late January 2025, investigators asked him why someone might commit arson in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.

The suspect allegedly replied that a potential arsonist might be motivated by resentment toward the wealthy, given that "we’re basically being enslaved by them."

Rinderknecht was arrested in Florida in early October.

He is a former resident of the Pacific Palisades neighborhood who grew up in France.

He is accused of starting a fire on New Year's Eve 2025 in the mountains overlooking the ritzy neighborhood.

It was this initial fire -- which firefighters believed they had extinguished -- that subsequently reignited on January 7, devastating the neighborhood and parts of the city of Malibu, according to federal prosecutors.

M.Ouellet--BTB