The man accused of causing the Palisades Fire, by allegedly igniting a smaller brush fire a week earlier, has asked a judge to exclude some of the potential evidence, arguing investigators lacked legitimate probable cause to obtain search warrants, and authorities dismissed numerous witness accounts that the fire was ignited by New Year’s fireworks.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 29, pleaded not guilty to three federal arson charges that accuse him of starting the Lachman Fire on Jan. 1, 2025 in the Palisades Highlands by allegedly using an “open flame” to set brush on fire around midnight.
In a motion to suppress filed Thursday, defense attorney Steve Haney argued that the only evidence agents had that Rinderknecht was a suspect when they obtained the warrants was his alleged presence in the neighborhood where the fire started.
“(The) search warrants lacked probable cause because they were solely based on the Defendant’s mere presence at the crime scene without additional evidence connecting the defendant to criminal activity or establishing that evidence would be found at the location searched. Under well-established Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent, mere presence at a crime scene is insufficient to establish probable cause,” the motion said.
Haney wrote that firefighters initially suspected the Lachman Fire was caused by fireworks and said nearly 31 witnesses either saw or heard fireworks just before the flames began to spread.
The defense attorney claimed authorities have cornered Rinderknecht into taking the blame for the Los Angeles Fire Department, which “abandoned” the smoldering embers from the Lachman Fire amid “the lack of water, resources, manpower and a bone-dry Santa Ynez reservoir in the distance.”
“The scapegoating and politically motivated finger pointing to the Uber driver who just happened to be on the hill when the fire started right after midnight on New Year’s Eve, is arguably one of the most shameful attempts at deflecting civil and criminal responsibility in the nation’s history,” Haney said.
The ATF said it concluded the Palisades Fire, which ignited six days later, was caused by unseen embers from the Lachman Fire, which it said had smoldered underground before being rekindled in the intense winds on Jan. 7.
The suppression motion also details alleged text message exchanges between LAFD firefighters assigned to Engine 69, who, according to the motion, said it was a “bad idea” to leave the burned hillsides unattended on Jan. 2 because there were signs the burn area was still smoldering.
The motion quotes an alleged message from a firefighter “and the rest is history.”
The source material for the text messages was not included as an exhibit in the filing.
To date, federal prosecutors have not added additional criminal charges against Rinderknecht that are more directly related to the Palisades Fire, the scope of the damage caused or the 12 deaths that resulted.
Rinderknecht was arrested in October in Florida, where he’d been living with his sister.
He’s been denied bond twice and will remain in federal custody until trial, which is currently set to begin in April.
Earlier this week prosecutors and defense attorneys filed a joint request that the court summon a larger-than-normal pool of potential jurors, given the significance of the events underlying the case, and asked that the potential jurors be screened with written questionnaires.
The judge is set to consider the suppression motion and the jury issues at a hearing in February.
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