The man accused of deliberately starting a deadly fire that devastated a Los Angeles neighborhood last year harbored a grudge against the rich and admired Luigi Mangione, the suspect charged with murdering a health insurance company CEO, prosecutors said.

Jonathan Rinderknecht is set to stand trial on June 8 for starting the Palisades Fire, which claimed 12 of the 31 lives lost in the flames that swept through Los Angeles in January 2025.

In court documents filed last week, prosecutors describe him as an Uber driver enraged by capitalism who deliberately and as an act of revenge set ablaze the neighborhood of Pacific Palisades, an ocean-view enclave home to celebrities and properties valued in the millions of dollars.

Two weeks after the act, the suspect’s search history showed entries such as "let's bring down the billionaires."

He also conducted searches for the slogan "Free Luigi Mangione," the man federal prosecutors say murdered the CEO of United Healthcare.

"Several of the defendant’s Uber passengers between December 31, 2024 and January 1, 2025 described him as angry, intense, driving erratically and complaining about being 'angry at the world' as well as about Luigi Mangione, capitalism and vigilante actions," the documents stated.

Rinderknecht denies the allegations.

Prosecutors’ documents claim that during an interrogation in late January 2025, investigators asked him why someone would start a fire in Pacific Palisades.

The suspect allegedly replied that a potential arsonist might be motivated by resentment toward the rich, since they "basically enslave us."

Rinderknecht was arrested in Florida in October. He grew up in France and had resided in Pacific Palisades.

He is accused of starting a fire on New Year’s Eve 2025 in the mountains overlooking the wealthy neighborhood. It was this fire, which firefighters believed they had extinguished, that reignited and gained strength on January 7. Since then, it consumed the neighborhood and parts of the city of Malibu, according to federal prosecutors.