An Argentine court has dropped charges of criminal negligence against three of the five people charged in the death of former One Direction singer Liam Payne, who fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Buenos Aires last October, according to a ruling obtained by The Associated Press.
In its ruling issued on Wednesday, Argentina’s Federal Appeals Court ordered the two other defendants in the case to be held in custody. They are on trial on charges of supplying drugs to a star of a famous British boy band.
The ruling dropped charges against three main defendants: Rogelio Nores, an Argentine businessman with U.S. citizenship who accompanied Payne on his trip to Buenos Aires; Gilda Martin, the manager of the Caesar Hotel in the trendy Palermo neighborhood where Payne died on October 16; and Esteban Grassi, the hotel’s head receptionist.
The manslaughter charge carries a prison sentence of one to five years in Argentina.
A toxicology report from the post-mortem examination revealed that Payne (31) had alcohol, cocaine and a prescription antidepressant in his system when he fell from the balcony.
Prosecutors argued that Nores failed to fulfill his duty of care by leaving Payne alone while he was intoxicated. The court sided with defense attorneys who argued that Norris had no legal, moral or social duty to care for Payne, and that he was also outside the hotel at the time of his friend’s death.
Investigators determined that two hotel employees, Martin and Grassi, saw Payne in the lobby of the Casaser Hotel on Oct. 16 and, with the help of others, decided to take him to his room.
Prosecutors said Payne should have been kept away from his hotel room, a balcony being a clear danger, and that he should have been kept away until he could receive proper medical attention. On Wednesday, the court ruled that prosecutors failed to prove that taking Payne to his hotel room constituted “unlawful, disorderly, erratic, reckless, or negligent conduct.”
The court ordered the detention of the other two defendants in the case, Ezequiel David Pereira, a former employee of the Casacer Hotel, and Brian Pais, a waiter who served Payne at an upscale Buenos Aires restaurant, on charges that they gave Payne drugs in the days and even hours before his death.
The court said the preventive detention was justified because the charges they face carry a prison sentence of four to 15 years.
Payne’s sudden death sparked a worldwide outpouring of grief from heartbroken fans of One Direction, one of the best-selling boy bands of all time.
