ORLANDO, Fla. — Federal prosecutors plan to retry a Brevard County man for starting a fire in Southern California that destroyed 6,800 structures and killed 12 people.
Jonathan Rinderknect, 29, avoided a lengthy prison sentence after jurors were deadlocked on a verdict, causing the judge to declare a mistrial in the case.
Investigators believed Rinderknect, a former Uber driver, had a grievance against wealthy people and was concerned about the environment, which motivated him to start the fire in Lachman. That blaze, according to prosecutors, spread to Pacific Palisades, causing massive destruction in its wake.
10 of the 12 jurors leaned toward a “not guilty” verdict.
“I personally was a “not guilty,” said one juror who withheld her name. “I felt like I was going to be singled out having to stand my ground and state my story, so I was kind of relieved that I was on the majority side.”
Another juror said it was the defense’s experts who destroyed the prosecution’s argument.
“A lot of the witnesses the defense brought really helped sway me,” she said. “They brought in their own experts who didn’t agree with the government’s experts.”
Steve Haney, Rinderknect’s defense attorney, said the government made his client a scapegoat because they had no solid evidence linking him to the deadly fire.
“I was very confident going into this that the government would fail to prove their case and they did,” said Haney. “They failed miserably. They didn’t even come close. And if they want to retry it again, they can retry it again. “
Prosecutors plan to retry the case in October. Rinderknect will remain in jail until his second trial.
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