Judge bars certain evidence from the trial of the man accused of sparking the deadly Palisades Fire

Rinderknecht’s trial is set to begin June 8. His lead attorney, Steve Haney, has said that Rinderknecht is being used as a scapegoat for the Los Angeles Fire Department’s failure to fully extinguish the earlier blaze.

During Wednesday's hearing, Judge Anne Hwang ruled that depositions by members of the fire department and a state park ranger cannot be introduced at trial because she thinks the information is irrelevant to the charges against Rinderknecht and could confuse the jury.

The evidence that defense attorneys intended to use included testimony from a firefighter, fire captain and a state park ranger that the New Year’s Day 2025 blaze was visibly smoldering when first responders left the scene. That testimony was gathered as part of a lawsuit filed by fire victims against the city.

Hwang also barred prosecutors from introducing AI-generated images of a city burning that prosecutors said Rinderknecht created a few months before the fire.

Haney said the exclusion of the ChatGPT images was important to his client because they are “very, very prejudicial” and taken out of context.

Other fire department actions can be discussed, including its initial response to and investigation of the Jan. 1 fire that burned some brush. Haney said he plans to argue that the government does not have solid evidence linking Rinderknecht to that fire, and that first responders had heard fireworks in the vicinity of where the blaze started.

An outline of prosecutors’ strategy — with details about the defendant’s alleged state of mind on the night before the first fire began — appeared in an April 29 pretrial memo filed by the U.S. attorney’s office. Prosecutors will claim he was upset that he didn't have plans for New Year's Eve and ranted about being angry at the world before the initial blaze was sparked.