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Fire suspect hid gun, made threat, feds say
Los Angeles Times
|October 14, 2025
Man accused in blaze in Palisades said he’d burn Florida home, prosecutors allege.
JONATHAN Rinderknecht in undated photo.
The 29-year-old man accused of sparking one of the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles allegedly threatened to burn down his home in Florida last month during an argument with a relative and then showed his father a gun, according to federal prosecutors.
Jonathan Rinderknecht appeared in a Florida federal courtroom on Thursday, one day after federal agents arrested him at his home outside Orlando. He was taken into custody 10 months after the wind-driven Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and killed 12 people.
Prosecutors allege that Rinderknecht “maliciously set” a brush fire just after midnight on Jan. 1 that eventually grew into the deadly inferno. He allegedly remained in the area after he set the fire, repeatedly called 911 and then offered to help firefighters, according to a federal affidavit.
This story is from the October 14, 2025 edition of Los Angeles Times.
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