A 30-year-old man on trial for allegedly starting a blaze that led to last year’s devastating Palisades fire displayed behavior similar to that of a revenge-driven arsonist, an expert testified in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday, June 17.
Jonathan Rinderknecht, 30, a former Uber driver and Palisades resident, is accused of starting the Jan. 1, 2025 Lachman fire that authorities believe smoldered underground before evolving into the Palisades fire a few days later. He faces several arson-related charges.
Kevin Kelm, a behavioral analyst, testified Wednesday that of six arson typologies defined by the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, he found Rinderknecht’s behavior before and after the fire began to be consistent with arson motivated by societal revenge, leading into excitement. This type of arsonist is driven by expressive motivation, which is not goal-oriented and typically satisfies some need for the offender that only they can explain, Kelm said.
“There’s really this sense of powerlessness that you can’t affect how the rest of the world thinks,” he said of the defendant.
Kelm, a consultant who previously worked as a supervisory special agent at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and with the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, testified as an expert witness for the government.
Kelm reviewed investigative reports, along with Rinderknecht’s statement and interview, social media posts, photographs and records of his activity with the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT to analyze his behavior around the time of the fire, noting that his behavior is consistent with an increase in anger.
In his analysis, Kelm looked at factors including the defendant’s personal life, interests and work life, looking for commonalities that translate to the idea of power, frustration and anger. Indications of societal revenge-motivated fires include financial stress, family and other interpersonal issues, which were all present in this case, Kelm said.
“In this case, it pretty much ran the gamut,” he said.
Kelm pointed to Rinderknecht’s ChatGPT usage as an example of the “constant theme” of societal revenge in Rinderknecht’s life, discussing a July 2024 instance when Rinderknecht instructed the chatbot to create an image illustrating wealth disparity, with people running away from a fire but unable to get past a gate emblazoned with dollar signs, on the other side of which were wealthy people.
“The prompt instructed the AI to create an image that was representative of the disparity between the wealthy and the rest of the people and the barriers to that wealth in a symbolic manner,” he said. “He became frustrated with it as his instructions became more heated, some curse words were included … the verbiage kept getting more and more frustrated and displays of anger towards the AI, towards the ChatGPT.”
Another instance that encapsulated Rinderknecht’s focus on societal revenge was his conversations with Uber passengers, a few of whom testified earlier in the trial.
“It’s an escalation, it’s moving from talking about it with a ChatGPT AI to talking about it with other people,” he said. “Now it’s a belief or ideology that goes beyond what we would expect to see…” he said.
In analyzing behavior, Kelm also looks for cross-domain behavior, or themes translating into different sectors of a subject’s life, which he also noticed in Rinderknecht’s behavior. When he texted a former coworker regarding New Year’s Eve plans, she asked for space and told him she had plans with her friends, which angered him. He ultimately messaged her from a second phone, where she did not appear to have his number saved, sending crude and violent messages.
“That’s going into another domain, as far as societal issues, now this is an interpersonal issue,” Kelm said.
With this type of expressive motivation, the excitement from setting the fire is often short-lived, Kelm testified.
“It’s back to an Uber driver, it’s back to not making enough money, it’s back to listening to partygoers in your backseat,” he said.
“He tends to collect grievances of things that go wrong,” he said of Rinderknecht.
The location of a fire is also significant for behavioral analysis. Rinderknecht was in the Pacific Palisades on New Year’s Eve after dropping off an Uber passenger, when he canceled his next scheduled ride and went to a viewpoint near the home he had lived in in the Palisades a few years prior, at a point where he was happier, prosecutors said. Most arsonists are familiar with the locations where they set a fire, Kelm said.
“The defendant put himself at the location, one of the things he did was stop taking work, stop taking calls and put himself in this isolated location,” Kelm said.
Rinderknecht was familiar with the location and had described it as an emotional place for him, the lead case agent with the ATF previously testified, something else Kelm’s analysis honed in on.
Rinderknecht called the 911 emergency hotline 17 times to report the fire in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2025, with his first several calls not going through due to poor cell service.
Kelm characterized the reporting as a “methodical stroll down the hill with the cell phone making calls,” inconsistent with behavior typical when people report, as was Rinderknecht’s creation of a screen recording of himself calling 911 and asking ChatGPT if one would be at fault if their cigarette started a fire, Kelm testified. Kelm took into account this “memorializing” of the call and ChatGPT inquiry.
“It’s unnecessary behavior, it’s excessive, it’s very inconsistent with what I would expect a normal individual to do when they are trying to report a fire and get out of harm’s way,” Kelm said.
Staying close by after the fire reflects an “inordinate” amount of interest, Kelm said. As first responders arrived at the Lachman fire scene, Rinderknecht initially drove away from the area, before turning around and driving back up. Interacting with first responders in an “overly gratuitous” manner is often seen in arson suspects, Kelm testified. Rinderknecht said that he offered firefighters help, but there was no evidence of that besides his own claim that he did so, Kelm said.
“It goes to this desire to appear helpful or not as a suspect but it didn’t occur,” Kelm testified.
The defendant’s digital history, social issues and increasing frustration with wealth disparity, climate change and other large-scale societal issues played into Kelm’s analysis, which he called “comprehensive.”
“In my opinion, the defendant exhibited behaviors consistent with revenge or societal-motivated revenge fire, subsequent to that I saw some elements of excitement related fire,” Kelm said of his conclusions.
Rinderknecht’s defense attorney, Steve Haney, cross-examined the witness, highlighting that Kelm is being paid for his testimony, which Kelm noted is standard professional practice for a consultant, and that the materials he reviewed were all provided by the government.
Kelm testified that if he had felt he needed further information or material he would have requested it. Haney also sought his corroboration that many people experience social isolation, financial difficulties and distaste for their jobs, which does not make a person a criminal.
Rinderknecht’s trial is ongoing. He faces charges of destruction of property by means of fire, arson affecting property used in interstate commerce and timber set afire, which could result in a sentence of 45 years in prison if convicted.