An outline of the prosecutors’ strategy — with details about the defendant’s alleged state of mind on the night before the first fire began — appears in an April 29 pretrial memo filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Witnesses reported that Rinderknecht had been driving erratically while on Uber routes around the Palisades on New Year’s Eve, said prosecutors. His passengers described him as “angry, intense, driving erratically, and ranting about being ‘pissed off at the world,’” the memo said.
In addition, prosecutors said Rinderknecht was distraught over a failed relationship and upset about thwarted plans for New Year’s Eve.
“My client maintains his innocence as he has from the beginning and we look forward to clearing his name at trial,” Rinderknecht’s attorney Steve Haney said in an email Sunday. “The offered motive that my client started a fire on NYs Eve because he did not have a date speaks for itself.”
A battalion chief had testified that he walked the perimeter of the burn area four times throughout the day and ensured all hot spots were out.
Fire Department Chief Jaime Moore, who was appointed in October, has said he is concerned about the differences in the firefighters’ testimonies and commissioned an independent report on how the Jan. 1 fire was handled.
Haney has said this evidence was not available to the defense when Rinderknecht was indicted.
