A dramatic mistrial rocked a Los Angeles federal courtroom Friday when jurors threw up their hands in the scorching arson case against the man accused of igniting the deadliest wildfire in California history — and prosecutors are already promising round two.
U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang pulled the plug on the trial of Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, a former Uber driver charged with torching what became the catastrophic January 2025 Palisades Fire, after jurors spent 13 agonizing hours over two days going nowhere fast. The panel fractured 10-2 in favor of walking the guy — leaving prosecutors fuming and victims of the $51.7 billion disaster stunned.
“We have people on both sides that are dead set,” the deadlocked jurors wrote, telling the judge that no amount of extra time or re-read testimony would budge anyone. Hwang agreed, ruling that forcing further deliberations would amount to coercing the two holdout jurors pushing for conviction.
Defense attorney Steve Haney called the lopsided tally a “pretty resounding indication” his client is innocent. But First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli wasn’t buying a word of it, vowing to drag Rinderknecht back into court before a fresh jury and secure guilty verdicts on all three felony counts — arson, malicious destruction by fire, and timber set afire.
The prosecution had painted a vivid portrait of a rage-fueled young man seething over wealth inequality who allegedly sparked a brush fire on New Year’s Day 2025 in the ritzy Pacific Palisades hills. Their theory: the blaze smoldered underground for a full week before explosive Santa Ana winds — gusting up to 90 mph — transformed those buried embers into an unstoppable inferno on January 7. The resulting catastrophe killed 12 people, incinerated more than 6,800 structures from the Palisades to Malibu, and burned for over a month before firefighters finally got it under control.
Prosecutors leaned hard on Rinderknecht’s digital footprint — ChatGPT diary entries dripping with class resentment, Reddit searches for “lets kill all the billionaires,” and even a look-up of a tech CEO’s home address. An ATF agent testified that Rinderknecht’s own account of his movements that night contradicted his phone’s location data.
The defense countered that not a shred of physical evidence put a lighter in their client’s hand. They argued fireworks — not Rinderknecht — ignited the initial blaze, with witnesses recalling teenagers sprinting down a nearby trail that night. And they hammered home a simple point: their client called 911 more than a dozen times and stuck around to watch firefighters work.
“No arsonist sets a fire and then calls 911 to put it out,” Haney told jurors.
Apparently, 10 of them agreed. The fight, however, is far from over.
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