Mistrial Declared in Palisades Fire Suspect Case Amid Claims of Luigi Mangione Obsession

A federal judge has declared a mistrial in the case against Jonathan Rinderknecht, the man accused of intentionally starting the Palisades Fire, after jurors were unable to agree on a verdict.

Rinderknecht, who was arrested in October 2025, had pleaded not guilty to a charge of destruction of property by means of fire in connection with the January 2025 blaze. The jury remained sharply divided, with 10 California jurors voting to find him not guilty and two voting to convict.

Federal prosecutors signaled they are not backing away from the case. “The evidence is strong that Jonathan Rinderknecht is responsible for igniting the fire on January 1, 2025, which eventually became the Palisades fire,” United States Attorney Bill Essayli wrote in a post on X. “We fully intend to retry this case before a new jury and obtain guilty verdicts on all charged counts.”

Defense attorney Steven Haney, however, said the outcome underscored what he viewed as a fundamental weakness in the government’s case.

“You know, we’d rather have been acquitted, you know, not guilty would have been better than no jury, but I tended to, you know, verdict was very clear that this case does not have the evidence that it needs, and it never did have the evidence that we need,” Haney said after the mistrial was declared.

One woman who identified herself to reporters as juror number four said she was not persuaded by the prosecution’s theory, saying there was “no proof.”

“Like I wanted to know, has anybody ever gotten in trouble for a hold over fire anywhere else? Because this hold over theory just wasn’t like it wasn’t working for me,” she said.

The juror said retrying the case would be a “waste of our American dollars.”

“It makes me sad as an American like that, you know, we couldn’t come to a conclusion,” she said.

On Thursday afternoon, jurors said they had reached a verdict only to come back 30 minutes later to say that they had no verdict.

“Would an additional instruction or the re-reading of any testimony help the jury in their deliberations?” the judge asked.

“There is nothing the court can do to assist the jury in their deliberations. Additional instructions or rereading the testimony would not help in deliberations. Unfortunately, we cannot reach a unanimous verdict,” the jury replied.

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In total, estimates say the fire caused between $35 billion and $45 billion in damage and led to the deaths of 12 people.

During the trial, behavioral analyst Kevin Kelm testified he believes Rinderknecht’s behavior is similar to someone who is driven by “societal revenge.”

Kelm said that in cases of societal revenge, the suspect typically focuses on personal problems such as finance, relationships, work, lifestyle or anything they’re not capable of dealing with on a daily basis. He said Rinderknecht’s use of ChatGPT was to make a “dystopian image” of the world, where he designed an image representing a barrier between rich people and other individuals who don’t have as much money.

Rinderknecht was partly inspired by Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, prosecutors say.

“In the months leading up to the fire, he had become increasingly angry with his life and society at large,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing. “For example, in the weeks and hours leading up to the fire, defendant fixated on Luigi Mangione, who allegedly murdered the UnitedHealthcare CEO in New York City on December 4, 2024.”

Rinderknecht searched for the terms “free LuigiMangione,” “lets take down all the billionaires” and “reddit lets kill all the billionaires” on Dec. 12 and 13, 2024, federal prosecutors said.

“When investigators asked defendant why someone might commit arson in the Pacific Palisades, he responded that it would be out of resentment of the rich enjoying their money as ‘we’re basically being enslaved by them’ and compared such an act of ‘desperation’ to the murder for which Mangione was charged,” prosecutors wrote.

Mangione’s attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, told News Agency in a statement: “As we have stated before in multiple public court filings, Mr. Mangione does not support violent actions and does not condone past or future political violence. These repeated attempts to connect him to unrelated acts or to insinuate that he condones or supports these acts are irresponsible, dangerous and prejudicial.”