Five suspects charged over death of former One Direction member Liam Payne — MercoPress

Five suspects charged over death of former One Direction member Liam Payne

Payne is believed to have consumed a mixture of alcohol, pink cocaine, MDMA, ketamine and the antidepressant sertraline before falling from the balcony.

Argentine prosecutors on Monday charged five people in connection with the Oct. 16 death of former British One Direction singer Liam Payne in Buenos Aires, which was not ruled a suicide.

Among the accused are hotel worker Ezequiel Pereyra and restaurant waiter Braian Paiz, who allegedly supplied the musician with the substances detected in his system. Both confessed this, but denied perceiving any seriousness in Payne’s condition. “We spent the night, we got high, something intimate happened. He consumed cocaine. I didn’t see it in bad condition,” Paiz told Telefé.

Payne fell to his death from a third floor while intoxicated. In addition, businessman Rogelio “Roger” Nores was charged with manslaughter and requested bail of AR$ 50 million (about US$ 50,000). He was also prohibited from leaving the country.

The other two defendants are the hotel manager Gilda Martín and the head of security Esteban Grassi. Martin faces charges of deliberate omission after ignoring warnings about Payne’s behavior, while Grassi is charged with accessory after the fact for failing to promptly report irregularities at the hotel.

At the autopsy, Payne, 31, showed “traces in his body of multiple use of alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant” in the previous 72 hours. His death, however, was caused by “multiple trauma” and “internal and external hemorrhage” resulting from the fall from the balcony of his third-floor room. He was already in a state that he did not even manage to protect himself from the fall, from which it was inferred that “he could have fallen into a state of semi or total unconsciousness.” The medical examination also ruled out self-harm and physical intervention by third parties as other possible causes of death.

One Direction was one of the most successful bands in recent memory, One Direction was put on indefinite hold in 2016 when Payne and the other members (Zayn Malik, Harry Styles, Niall Horan and Louis Tomlinson) pursued solo careers.

Nores’ case is compounded by more than 800 hours of security video showing him entering and leaving Payne’s room, suggesting knowledge of the situation that led to the tragedy. “Nores failed to comply with his duties of care, assistance and assistance to Liam James Payne, not only due to a pre-existing legal duty but also due to specific functions of guidance and personal accompaniment, previously coordinated and accepted due to the relevance and activities of his profession, abandoning him. to his fate, leaving him unable to take care of himself, knowing that the accused suffered from multiple previous addictions,” the Judge stated. Nores’ attorney responded that his client was not “Payne’s doctor, nor his attorney, representative or therapeutic partner.”

Payne is believed to have consumed a mixture of alcohol, pink cocaine, MDMA, ketamine and the antidepressant sertraline before falling from the balcony. Emergency calls to police from hotel staff described a guest who had consumed “too many drugs and alcohol” and was “trashing up the room.”

Paiz and Pereyra face sentences of 4 to 15 years for drug trafficking, while the case of the other three would be more severe.