Brittny Mejia

Los Angeles Times

(TNS)

Signaling a possible mistrial, a federal jury hearing the arson case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, a 30-year-old former Uber driver accused of setting what would become the deadliest wildfire in Los Angeles history, said Thursday that it was unable to come to a unanimous verdict after more than 13 hours of deliberations.

The jury sent a note at 2:30 p.m. to U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang, who read it aloud, suggesting the panel was deadlocked.

"We have people on both sides that are deadset," the note read.

After discussions with defense attorneys and prosecutors, Hwang sent the jury back a note saying: "Is there anything the court can do to assist in the jury's deliberations? For example, would an additional instruction or the rereading of any testimony help in the jury's deliberation. Do not disclose the vote count in responding."

The jury responded that nothing would help. "Unfortunately we cannot reach a unanimous verdict," they wrote in a subsequent note read by Hwang shortly after 3:20 p.m.

The jury was instructed to return to court at 9 a.m. Friday.

Defense attorney Steve Haney told The Times it appeared the trial was heading to a "hung jury."

It was the 12th day of a trial in which prosecutors called more than 30 witnesses, who painted a picture of a man spiraling mentally and seeking vengeance against the wealthy when he hiked to a clearing overlooking Pacific Palisades and used a lighter to set the Lachman fire on New Year's Day 2025.

Prosecutors said the Lachman fire smoldered underground for a week before exploding into the deadly Palisades fire. Firefighters had thought they had extinguished the initial blaze and left with their equipment on Jan. 2. The secondary inferno erupted Jan. 7. 2025, killed 12 people, destroyed 6,500 structures across the Palisades and Malibu and cost billions in damage and insurance claims.

Rinderknecht, who has been in federal custody since October, was on trial for destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and timber set afire. In a follow-up note Thursday at 3:40 p.m., the jury said it could not reach a unanimous verdict on any of the three felony charges.

During the trial, Rinderknecht's defense attorney called several witnesses in an attempt to undercut the prosecution's theory of the fire. A Palisades resident said he saw several teens leaving the hill behind his house after the fire started, acting "boastful." A Los Angeles firefighter testified that he saw flashes of light and heard loud noises that sounded like fireworks around midnight near the neighborhood closest to where the blaze sparked. A defense expert told jurors that the most likely cause of the blaze was fireworks and cast doubt on exactly where it originated.

"The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the lighter ignited the fire, because that's what they claim happened here," Haney told the jury in his closing argument Tuesday. "They don't have any evidence at all that Jonathan started a fire on that hill with a lighter."

Haney argued that no one knew exactly when the Lachman fire ignited, only that it was first spotted at 12:12 a.m., meaning it could have happened before his client reached the top of the hill. He told jurors that the scene of the Lachman fire was not secured to preserve evidence that could have exonerated his client — evidence he argued probably was lost during the fire suppression efforts used on the Palisades fire.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Danbee C. Kim countered that there were significant data and fire pattern indicators that remained, which she called "extremely incriminating" for Rinderknecht.

"He was the only one there and he was in the specific origin area when the fire was visible from up to five miles away," Kim said. She argued that "there was no evidence of any fireworks in the area that night."

Rinderknecht had been working as an Uber driver on New Year's Eve, dropping off his last passenger around 11:35 p.m. in a neighborhood close to where the fire began, according to both the defense and prosecutors.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Matt O'Brien said Rinderknecht knew the area well because he had lived there a few years earlier, before moving to a small apartment in North Hollywood where "his life started to deteriorate."

"You'll hear that in 2024, defendant was lonely with no real friends," O'Brien said. "He lived by himself and was withdrawn."

He said Rinderknecht wanted "revenge against society, because he blamed society for all his troubles."

On New Year's Eve, O'Brien told jurors, Rinderknecht canceled his next Uber ride and instead drove to a small parking lot at the edge of the neighborhood, a block from where he had lived.

Rinderknecht then used his phone flashlight to walk up a trail to a small clearing at the top of the hill called Hidden Buddha. Once there, O'Brien said, Rinderknecht listened to a French rap song whose music video features someone lighting a joint and also burning cash.

Around 12:12 a.m., within seconds of the fire being detected on a surveillance camera, Rinderknecht attempted to call 911, but the call failed. O'Brien said location data from Rinderknecht's phone showed that during one of his attempts to call 911, he was within 30 feet of the fire.

According to O'Brien, Rinderknecht admitted to investigators that he had brought a lighter with him up to the clearing. He also told jurors that Rinderknecht had previously asked ChatGPT to create images for him of a fire and expressed his anger "about wealthy people and his anger about society."

During the interview, investigators asked Rinderknecht why someone might commit arson in Pacific Palisades. O'Brien said Rinderknecht answered that it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as "we're basically being enslaved by them."

The defense said investigators "found no accelerants, they found no incendiary devices that could be linked to my client."

He said his client immediately called 911 after he saw the fire, the first of more than a dozen 911 calls he would make. When he walked down the hill and finally reached an operator around 12:17 a.m., Haney said, his client "pleaded for help."

"There's a fire, there's a fire," Rinderknecht said in a 911 call played for the jury.

"The evidence is going to show it's not the voice and actions of a man who started a fire," Haney said, "it's the voice and actions of a man trying to stop a fire."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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