A court has dismissed a manslaughter charge against Rogelio Nores, who was implicated in the death of Liam Payne.
On October 16, 2024, the renowned One Direction member Liam Payne died in a hotel located in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
On December 27, Judge Laura Bruniard charged five individuals, including Rogelio Nores, leading to a hearing at Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Court. Three judges from the appeals court decided to dismiss the charge against Nores.
The defendants included businessman Nores, who was a friend of Payne, along with hotel manager Gilda Martin and hotel receptionist Esteban Grassi. Judge Bruniard charged three individuals with manslaughter and two with drug-related offenses.
Nores was accused of not fulfilling his duty to care for Payne and allegedly abandoning him despite knowing the singer’s struggles with addiction, as reported by the BBC.
Prior to being officially charged, Nores clarified his relationship with Payne, stating to MailOnline that he was not Payne’s manager and held no official responsibility for him, identifying himself merely as a ‘very dear friend’.
He defended himself by saying: “I never abandoned Liam, I went to his hotel three times that day and left 40 minutes before this happened. There were over 15 people at the hotel lobby chatting and joking with him when I left. I could have never imagined something like this would happen.”
Following the court’s decision to drop the charge, Nores’s lawyer expressed to local media: “We are happy to have reversed the decision by 360 degrees. We have always maintained that Rogelio Nores was not responsible for Liam Payne’s death.
“He was only his friend and had no duty or legal obligation to ensure his safety.”
Documents obtained by MailOnline detail the court’s rationale in overturning the ruling against Nores. They state ‘the prosecutors and the plaintiff have not pointed out any relationship or complicity on the part of Nores with the two defendants for supplying narcotics to Liam Payne, nor any contribution on his part in the execution of such acts’.
The documents assert that it is unreasonable to expect Nores to have taken precautions beyond the responsibilities of the Casa Sur hotel and its management, emphasizing that all parties involved were adults with full legal capacities. Consequently, Nores could not be held accountable for the incident’s outcomes.
The court also determined that Martin and Grassi were not involved in Payne’s death.
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