Suspect in deadly Palisades Fire to be moved to California from Florida after grand jury indictment

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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A suspect in the Los Angeles area's deadly Palisades Fire earlier this year was ordered to be moved to California on Thursday from central Florida, where he was arrested last week.

A hearing for Jonathan Rinderknecht that had been scheduled in Orlando, Florida, for Friday was canceled. His next hearing will be an arraignment in Los Angeles in the upcoming weeks, according to federal prosecutors.

The order to move Rinderknecht from Florida to California came a day after a grand jury in Southern California indicted him on one count each of destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and timber set afire.

Rinderknecht was arrested last week along Florida's Space Coast, where he had been living in his sister and brother-in-law's house for the past five months. He was ordered to remain in federal custody during a court hearing last week because of the magistrate judge's concern about his mental health and his ability to get to California for future court hearings.

At the court hearing, he was represented by a public defender. But he has since hired defense attorney Steve Haney, who previously represented a former aspiring sports business manager who was among those convicted in a college basketball bribery case.

Federal officials have said Rinderknecht, who lived in Southern California at the time, started a small fire on New Year’s Day that smoldered underground before reigniting nearly a week later on Jan. 7 and roaring through the coastal Pacific Palisades and Malibu.

The fire, which left 12 dead in hillside neighborhoods, was one of two huge blazes that broke out that day. They killed more than 30 people in all and destroyed over 17,000 homes and buildings in Los Angeles County.

Rinderknecht was first interviewed by authorities on Jan. 24. Investigators said during the intervening months they worked to rule out other potential causes for the first fire’s ignition, such as fireworks or lightning strikes. All the while they were combing through the suspect’s phone to track his whereabouts on the day it began.

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