According to a ruling obtained by the Associated Press on Thursday, an Argentinian court has overturned the criminal negligence charges against three of the five defendants linked to the death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne, who fell from a third-floor hotel balcony in Buenos Aires last October.
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03-09, 2025The Argentinian Federal Appeals Court ordered that the other two defendants in the case remain in custody. They face charges of supplying drugs to the famous British boy band star. The two defendants are Ezequiel David Pereira, a former employee of the CasaSur Hotel, and Brian Paises, a waiter who served Payne at a high-end restaurant in Buenos Aires.
The three key defendants who had their charges dropped are: Rogelio Norese, an Argentinian businessman with U.S. citizenship who accompanied Payne during his trip to Buenos Aires; Gilda Martin, the manager of the CasaSur Palermo Hotel, where Payne died on October 16; and Esteban Graci, the hotel's head receptionist. Involuntary manslaughter carries a sentence of one to five years in Argentina.
A toxicology report following the autopsy revealed that Payne, 31, had alcohol, cocaine, and prescription antidepressants in his system when he fell from the balcony. Prosecutors argued that Norese failed to fulfill his duty of care by leaving Payne alone while he was intoxicated. The court sided with the defense lawyers' argument that Norese had no legal, moral, or social obligation to care for Payne, and that he was not even at the hotel when the incident occurred.
Investigators determined that on October 16, two hotel employees, Martin and Graci, saw Payne severely intoxicated in the CasaSur lobby and decided to take him to his room with the help of others. Prosecutors stated that these individuals should have kept Payne away from his hotel room, as the balcony presented an obvious danger, until the singer could receive proper medical care. On Wednesday, the court ruled that prosecutors had failed to prove that taking Payne to his hotel room "constituted an illicit, unruly, clumsy, reckless, imprudent, or negligent act."
The court also ordered that the other two defendants in the case—Ezequiel David Pereira, a former employee of the CasaSur Hotel, and Brian Paises, a waiter who served Payne at a high-end restaurant in Buenos Aires—remain in custody, accused of providing him with drugs in the days or even hours before his death. The court stated that there were grounds for preventative detention, given that the charges they face carry a sentence of four to fifteen years.
Payne's sudden death caused grief among One Direction fans worldwide, One Direction being one of the best-selling boy bands of all time. His passing left countless fans heartbroken and sparked widespread mourning.
