Authorities said they have arrested a 29-year-old man in Florida in connection with the deadly January wildfire that destroyed the Los Angeles neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.
The arrest was announced during a press conference on Wednesday afternoon. Jonathan Rinderknecht is accused of lighting a fire on New Year’s Day that burned down much of the Palisades a week later.
He was arrested on Tuesday and will make his first court appearance on Wednesday in Orlando. He's been charged with destruction of property by means of fire, which is a felony with a mandatory minimum 5-year prison sentence, but he could face up to 20 years.
Fire investigators were able to determine the exact location of the fire's origin using a variety of tests and scientific methods.
Officials said digital evidence led them to charge Rinderknecht, including his cellphone GPS location, a "disturbing" image he created in ChatGPT months beforehand of a dystopian city burning down and repeatedly listening to a French rap song with a corresponding music video that showed things being lit on fire.
Authorities claim Rinderknecht was living in the Palisades at the time before relocating to Florida.
Just after midnight on New Year's Day, officials claim Rinderknecht was working as an Uber driver and had dropped off passengers in a residential area before climbing to a hilltop at a nearby hiking trail.
Officials said he started a fire with an open flame that became the Lachman Fire. He allegedly fled the scene before returning later to watch it burn.
Firefighters suppressed the Lachman Fire, but it continued to smolder underground before it resurfaced a week later due to high winds and became the Palisades Fire.
Rinderknecht will likely face additional charges, officials said.
The blaze, which erupted on Jan. 7, killed 12 people and destroyed more than 6,000 homes and buildings in the Pacific Palisades, a wealthy coastal neighborhood of LA.
RELATED STORY | New report reveals median home value of $3 million in Palisades Fire area
Investigators still haven't determined the cause of that blaze or the Eaton Fire, which broke out the same day in the community of Altadena and killed 18 people.
Both fires burned for days, reducing entire neighborhoods to rubble and ash.
RELATED STORY | Homes were burning and roads already jammed when Pacific Palisades evacuation order came, AP finds
An outside review released in September found that a lack of resources and outdated policies for sending emergency alerts led to delayed evacuation warnings.
The report commissioned by Los Angeles County supervisors said a series of weaknesses, including "outdated policies, inconsistent practices and communications vulnerabilities," hampered the county's response.
