{"id":48626,"date":"2025-10-16T03:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T08:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=48626"},"modified":"2025-10-16T07:17:30","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T12:17:30","slug":"man-suspected-of-starting-palisades-fire-indicted-on-federal-charges-faces-45-years-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=48626","title":{"rendered":"Man suspected of starting Palisades Fire indicted on federal charges; faces 45 years in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The man accused of starting a fire that eventually became the deadly blaze that devastated the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles earlier this year has been indicted by a federal grand jury, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, was charged in a three-count indictment with one count of destruction of property by means of fire, one count of arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and one count of timber set afire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He now faces up to 45 years in federal prison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The indictment adds two additional charges. When he was arrested, authorities said the maximum punishment Rinderknecht faced was 20 years in prison.<a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/arrest-made-connection-palisades-fire\/story?id=126328318\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Rinderknecht, a former LA resident living in Florida, was arrested Oct. 7 &#8212; several months after the Palisades Fire leveled neighborhoods in Los Angeles County and left 12 people dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Federal prosecutors said Rinderknecht, who was working as an Uber driver at the time, ignited a brush fire in the Pacific Palisades on Jan. 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Despite being suppressed by fire crews, the fire continued to smolder until it surfaced again nearly a week later amid high winds in the Los Angeles area, eventually becoming the Palisades Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in LA&#8217;s history, according to officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">In a criminal complaint, authorities allege Rinderknecht caused the fire by lighting a combustible material, such as vegetation or paper, with an open flame, likely a lighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Authorities haven&#8217;t described a motive, but during a news conference after Rinderknecht&#8217;s arrest, acting U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli&nbsp;pointed to digital evidence included in the complaint of an image Rinderknecht allegedly generated in July 2024 using ChatGPT, showing in part &#8220;a burning forest and a crowd fleeing from it.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Rinderknecht is due to appear for an arraignment in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, which is expected in the coming weeks, federal prosecutors said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/abcnews.go.com\/US\/man-suspected-starting-palisades-fire-indicted-federal-charges\/story?id=126565061\">abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The man accused of starting a fire that eventually became the deadly blaze that devastated the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles earlier this year has been indicted by a federal grand jury, the Justice Department announced Wednesday. Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, was charged in a three-count indictment with one count of destruction of property by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":48627,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[1350,32013,34973],"class_list":["post-48626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-man","tag-palisades","tag-starting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48628,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48626\/revisions\/48628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}