Mistrial declared for Palisades Fire suspect who allegedly fixated on Luigi Mangione

A national justice declared a mistrial for the antheral accused of deliberately igniting the Palisades Fire aft jurors failed to scope a unanimous verdict.

Jonathan Rinderknecht was arrested successful October 2025 and charged with demolition of spot by means of occurrence and pleaded not blameworthy aft being charged successful the Palisades Fire successful January 2025. Ten of the California jurors thought Rinderknecht was not guilty, portion 2 thought helium was.

"The grounds is beardown that Jonathan Rinderknecht is liable for igniting the occurrence connected January 1, 2025, which yet became the Palisades fire," United States Attorney Bill Essayli said successful a station connected X. "We afloat mean to retry this lawsuit earlier a caller assemblage and get blameworthy verdicts connected each charged counts."

On Thursday afternoon, jurors said they had reached a verdict lone to travel backmost 30 minutes aboriginal to accidental that they had nary verdict.

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A firefighter battles the Palisades Fire successful Mandeville Canyon successful Los Angeles connected Jan. 11, 2025. Jonathan Rinderknecht, the fishy facing charges related to the blaze, is shown astatine right. (Jae C. Hong/AP; Department of Justice/Reuters)

"Would an further acquisition oregon the re-reading of immoderate grounds assistance the assemblage successful their deliberations?" the justice asked.

"There is thing the tribunal tin bash to assistance the assemblage successful their deliberations. Additional instructions oregon rereading the grounds would not assistance successful deliberations. Unfortunately, we cannot scope a unanimous verdict," the assemblage replied.

In total, estimates accidental the occurrence caused $35 cardinal and $45 cardinal successful harm and led to the deaths of 12 people.

During the trial, behavioral expert Kevin Kelm testified helium believes Rinderknecht's behaviour is akin to idiosyncratic who is driven by "societal revenge."

Kelm said that successful cases of societal revenge, the fishy typically focuses connected idiosyncratic problems specified arsenic finance, relationships, work, manner oregon thing they're not susceptible of dealing with connected a regular basis. He said Rinderknecht's usage of ChatGPT was to marque a "dystopian image" of the world, wherever helium designed an representation representing a obstruction betwixt affluent radical and different individuals who don't person arsenic overmuch money.

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

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Jonathan Rinderknecht appears successful national tribunal successful Orlando, Florida, connected Oct. 9, 2025. He faces charges for allegedly starting a New Year's Day occurrence that killed 12 radical successful Pacific Palisades, California. (Neftali Melendez)

"In the months starring up to the fire, helium had go progressively aggravated with his beingness and nine astatine large," prosecutors wrote successful a tribunal filing. "For example, successful the weeks and hours starring up to the fire, suspect fixated connected Luigi Mangione, who allegedly murdered the UnitedHealthcare CEO successful New York City connected December 4, 2024."

Rinderknecht searched the presumption "free LuigiMangione," "lets instrumentality down each the billionaires" and "reddit lets termination each the billionaires" connected Dec. 12 and 13, 2024, national prosecutors said.

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Luigi Mangione appears astatine a pretrial proceeding successful Manhattan Criminal Court successful New York City connected June 17, 2026.  (Pool via Barry Williams for New York Daily News)

"When investigators asked suspect wherefore idiosyncratic mightiness perpetrate arson successful the Pacific Palisades, helium responded that it would beryllium retired of resentment of the affluent enjoying their wealth arsenic 'we’re fundamentally being enslaved by them' and compared specified an enactment of 'desperation' to the execution for which Mangione was charged," prosecutors wrote.

Mangione's attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, told Fox News Digital successful a statement: "As we person stated earlier successful aggregate nationalist tribunal filings, Mr. Mangione does not support convulsive actions and does not condone past oregon aboriginal governmental violence. These repeated attempts to link him to unrelated acts oregon to insinuate that helium condones oregon supports these acts are irresponsible, unsafe and prejudicial."

Fox News' Amanda Gillilan contributed to this report.