Five people have been charged in connection with the falling death of Liam Payne in Argentina, including hotel staffers and a friend of the One Direction singer.
Over two months after Payne died at age 31 due to a fatal fall off a hotel balcony, several hotel staffers and one of Payne’s friends have been charged in connection to Payne’s death, according to Argentina’s 14th National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office.
Payne’s friend Roger Nores, hotel manager Gilda Martin and receptionist Esteban Grassi were charged with manslaughter. Ezequiel Pereyra, also a hotel employee, and Braian Paiz, who works as a waiter, were charged with supplying drugs.
Laura Bruniard, the head of the National Criminal and Correctional Court No. 34, decided to move forward with the charges on Friday, and five people were ordered to preventive detention, according to the public prosecutor’s Monday statement. The news comes over a month after three people were arrested in connection with Payne’s death, though no names were revealed at the time.
Both Pereyra and Paiz have been accused of delivering cocaine to Payne for a fee a combined four times during his October stay at the Casa Sur Palermo hotel in Buenos Aires, where Payne fell from his balcony.
Nores, on the other hand, has been accused of “fail[ing] to comply with his duties of care, assistance and aid that he had towards Payne due not only to a pre-existing legal duty but also to specific functions of guidance and personal accompaniment, previously coordinated and accepted by the relevance and activities of his profession, abandoning him to his fate,” per the prosecutor’s statement, which noted Nores was aware Payne was incapable of caring for himself given his knowledge of Payne’s previous addictions to alcohol and cocaine.
The statement reveals that Martin and Grassi both witnessed Payne, who was unable to stand due to his consumption of various substances, in the hotel lobby shortly before his death. Given the risk of the balcony in his hotel room, the statement notes that both the hotel manager and receptionist should have kept Payne safe “in an area without sources of danger, in company and until medical care was provided for him.”
The ruling also notes, according to the judge’s understanding, Payne was attempting to leave his hotel room through his balcony and, in his state of intoxication, fell.
