Palisades fire defendant was spiraling mentally when blaze ignited, ATF agent testifies
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Just minutes after a fire erupted above the Pacific Palisades on New Year’s Day in 2025, investigators say, Jonathan Rinderknecht asked ChatGPT if he might be held responsible for the blaze.“Are you at fault if a fire is lit because of your cigarettes?” wrote the Uber driver, then 29.As the Lachman fire burned into the night, videos showed Rinderknecht continue to drive around the wealthy enclave, sometimes right behind fire trucks responding to the blaze that federal prosecutors allege he started.
He searched news stories about the fire in the early hours of the morning and tried to call and text an ex-boyfriend who lived in the area where the fire burned.He called 911 twice to report the blaze, but said nothing about how it started, according to evidence presented in a downtown federal courthouse Thursday morning.And when he returned home to his North Hollywood apartment around 3:45 a.m., records from Rinderknecht’s phone show he played a French hip-hop song he’d become obsessed with, which has a video showing money set on fire.In two days on the stand at Rinderknecht’s arson trial, U.S.
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agent Michael Montevidoni has painted a detailed picture of the defendant’s movements and mental state in the moments he allegedly started the Lachman fire and the day after.Texts, screen grabs, recordings and other records recovered from a search of Rinderknecht’s cellphones portray a man who was by turns lonely and livid, angry at billionaires and ex-romantic partners while seemingly scared about his own declining mental health.Prosecutors believe the Lachman fire, which erupted around midnight on New Year’s Day 2025, burned underground for days and reignited Jan.
7 as the Palisades fire, the most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles history.The inferno killed 12 people, destroyed 6,500 structures across the Palisades and Malibu and...