ATF Agent Tells of Palisades Fire Suspect's Fire-Focused Internet Use

LOS ANGELES, CA — The lead agent in the Palisades Fire investigation told a federal jury Thursday that arson defendant Jonathan Rinderknecht expressed a fascination with "forests burning" and used ChatGPT to create images of environmental destruction reflecting an apparent hatred of the wealthy during the months before the devastating blaze.

Michael Montevidoni, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified in downtown Los Angeles that Rinderknecht used the artificial intelligence platform as a kind of "diary," asking it thousands of questions about everything from relationship problems and personal issues to climate change and politics.

In July 2024, for example, five months before the Lachman Fire he is accused of setting, Rinderknecht asked the platform to generate an image of "Mother Nature on one side and corporations on the other," showing how "corporations are enslaving the population" and "destroying the planet," according to his own ChatGPT queries shown to the jury.

In many of the queries, Montevidoni testified, Rinderknecht requests images of "forests burning."

Under questioning by the defendant's attorney, Steven Haney, the ATF agent said it seemed as if Rinderknecht had a "relationship" with the platform.

"He treated it like a diary," Montevidoni said, adding that the defendant often relied on ChatGPT for advice. "He did disclose a lot of emotional turmoil to ChatGPT. He expressed a paranoia about U.S. government surveillance."

Haney, however, emphasized that his client never requested an image of a self-ignited fire or expressed a desire to set a fire himself. There were no internet searches related to the crime of arson, the attorney pointed out.

The attorney also told jurors that while evidence of the defendant's internet use would show Rinderknecht's "social views," the defendant is facing arson charges and "there is no physical evidence that connects Jonathan to the act of starting the fire."

Rinderknecht, 30, a dual French and U.S. citizen, sat at the defense table in Los Angeles federal court wearing a shirt, jacket and tie, taking notes and sometimes conferring with his attorneys. He has been in custody since his arrest on Oct. 7.

The defense contends that fireworks were to blame for the Lachman Fire and arson by an unknown person may be responsible for the Palisades Fire that roared into sight six days later. No evidence links Rinderknecht to the small brush fire on Jan. 1 or the catastrophic blaze that later destroyed billions of dollars of property and killed a dozen people, Haney said.

Rinderknecht pleaded not guilty in October to three arson charges: destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce, and timber set afire. The three counts together carry a maximum prison sentence of 45 years.

Wednesday afternoon, Montevidoni told jurors of Rinderknecht's cell phone activity on Jan. 1, 2025, when the small brush fire dubbed the Lachman Fire was set in a clearing near the Palisades neighborhood of the Summit. According to the ATF agent, Rinderknecht made over a dozen calls to 911 starting from various points close to the spot where the fire began at 12:12 a.m., and shot video of the flames and firefighters at the scene after first driving away, and then turning around to follow a fire truck back up the hill.

Prosecutors showed the jury a five-foot 3-D scale model of the hillside where the fire started as well as the trail leading to the spot and the place where Rinderknecht parked his car before midnight on New Year's Eve 2025.

The jury also saw about a dozen ominous-looking black-and-white surveillance photos taken from a nearby water tank which showed the hillside trail and the placement of Rinderknecht's phone in increments of mere moments as he made his way back down the trail to his car while calling 911 to report the fire. Meanwhile, the progression of the fire, revealed as a white glow in the series of photos, was increasing by the second.

According to federal prosecutors, law enforcement officials determined that the Palisades Fire was a "holdover" fire — a continuation of the Lachman Fire that began early in the morning on New Year's Day 2025. Although firefighters quickly suppressed the Lachman Fire after responding to calls from residents and the suspect, the fire continued to smolder and burn underground within the root structure of dense vegetation.

On Jan. 7, 2025, hurricane-force Santa Ana winds caused the underground fire to surface and spread above ground in what became known as the Palisades Fire. The most destructive wildfire in Los Angeles city history, it burned 23,448 acres and ruined much of the exclusive Pacific Palisades community, destroying about 6,800 structures and killing 12 people.

Using witness statements, video surveillance, cell phone data and analysis of fire dynamics and patterns at the scene, among other things, law enforcement determined that Rinderknecht lit a fire in the chaparral using a green Bic lighter investigators later recovered from his car, setting the Lachman Fire just after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025, on federal land, Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew O' Brien said during opening statements Wednesday.

The jury heard that on the evening of Dec. 31, 2024, Rinderknecht was working as an Uber driver. Two passengers he drove on separate trips between 10:15 and 11:15 p.m. that night later told law enforcement that they remembered Rinderknecht appeared agitated and angry, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

O'Brien said Rinderknecht was depressed and angry that night because he was alone on New Year's Eve and had been rejected by an ex-girlfriend as well as an ex-boyfriend, whom he had once lived with in the Palisades.

The girl answered the defendant's imploring text about something to do that night with a curt response: "I think we need space right now. I'm sorry," the prosecutor said.

Shortly after allegedly setting the hillside fire with his lighter, Rinderknecht accessed ChatGPT, asking "Are you at fault if a fire is lit because of your cigarette," according to the query played for the jury.

Montevidoni said the query was "suspicious. It seemed like he was trying to create an alternate record ... to be able to show later."

In pretrial hearings, U.S. District Judge Anne Hwang ruled that the defense may not attempt to shift the blame for the Palisades Fire to the L.A. Fire Department, which has been blamed for allegedly failing to completely extinguish the Lachman Fire.

During the same time the Palisades Fire was burning, the Eaton Fire ravaged the Altadena community in the San Gabriel Mountains foothills.

The wildfires caused total property and capital losses ranging between $76 billion and $131 billion, according to the UCLA Anderson Forecast.

The trial is expected to last between two and three weeks.

By Fred Shuster, City News Service