A close friend and manager of Liam Payne accused of negligent manslaughter following the star’s death after he fell from an Argentine hotel balcony has had the case against him dropped, can reveal today.
Rogelio ‘Roger’ Nores, 35, has said he was ‘delighted’ to be cleared of any involvement in the former one Direction star’s tragic death in Buenos Aires last October.
Nores, who is an American citizen, was accused of having ‘abandoned him [Liam Payne] to his luck knowing that he was incapable of fending for himself and knowing that he suffered from multiple addictions’, court documents showed.
Judge Laura Bruniard has said Nores ‘failed to fulfil his duties of care, assistance and help’ towards the singer, who died on October 16 after falling from a third floor balcony at the CasaSur Palermo hotel in Buenos Aires.
Roger had been held in the South American country since Payne’s death on October 16, after being implicated by authorities investigating how the singer fell.
He had been forbidden to leave and had his assets seized and he faced up to 15 years in jail but his legal team appealed against the decision earlier last month and overnight the court cleared him and he shared his news with first.
Speaking from Buenos Aries he said: ‘These last few months have been hard but now I am cleared of anything to do with Liam’s death, I am delighted to be a free man and innocent of all charges.
‘Liam was my friend and I am so sorry for what happened but as my legal team and I explained to the court very clearly, I had nothing to do with it and I am not in any way responsible.’
The decision was made by judges Julio Lucini and Hernán López, members of Chamber V of the Criminal and Correctional Court.
Nores shared with the 35 page court ruling which overturned a decision made on December 27 to keep him in the country and indict him in Liam’s death.
The ruling said:’ 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.’
It concluded:’Finally, just as it cannot be reasonably conceived that Nores could be required to take precautions that would go beyond the contractual relationship of the Casa Sur hotel and its managers with the person who was staying there –all of them adults and in unrestricted exercise of their legal capacities – much less could he be held responsible for the consequences of his acts.’
The ruling also cleared hotel staff Esteban Grassi and Gilda Martín and it said:’The formation of the this case does not affect the good name and honour they would have enjoyed.’
The indictments of Braian Paiz and Ezequiel Pereyra – the waiter and the hotel worker detained in preventive detention, accused of selling cocaine to the singer – were confirmed by the judges and they will remain in prison.
Nores, Grassi and Martín had been indicted at the end of last year by Judge Laura Bruniard, who agreed with prosecutor Andres Madrea, that charges should be brought against all five after viewing more than 800 hours of footage showing Payne at the hotel.
Prosectors had argued that as his ‘close friend’ Nores was Payne’s guarantor of his ‘life and stay in Argentina’ and his father Geoff Payne had also testified this, giving a lengthy statement detailing the businessman’s relationship with his son.
Nores lawyer, Rafael Cuneo Libarona, told local media:’ We are pleased to have reversed the resolution 360 degrees, with an absolute dismissal by the Chamber.
‘We always maintained that Roger Nores was not responsible for the death of Liam Payne.’
‘He was only his friend and had no legal duty or obligation to ensure his safety. Payne was an adult man, whose freedom and capacity were not affected by any interdiction, even in his material formulation of mere general rational aptitude if we stick to the evaluations of the doctors.’
Liam’s death shocked the world and raised questions about how he had fallen from his balcony. His room had been smashed up.
Police launched a wide-ranging investigation into his death.
A 911 call the day the singer died warned that he had been acting aggressively and could have been under the influence of drugs and alcohol.
Grassi, the chief receptionist, claimed Liam called down ‘insistently’ to ask for alcohol, and to ask where he could get cocaine – allegedly insulting a member of staff who said he could not help.
Further to this, text messages purporting to have been exchanged between Liam and an escort in which he offered her $5,000 (£3,900) to ‘party’.
Tests have shown the singer binged on alcohol and cocaine before he died and also had traces of an antidepressant in his system.
Prosecutors also made it clear the idea that Liam had committed suicide had been ruled out and said he was in a state of ‘semi or total unconsciousness’ as he fell to his death from his hotel balcony when he ‘didn’t know what he was doing.’
The recent publication of the last photo of Liam, showing him being carried back up to his room from his hotel lobby shortly before his fall by three men said to include Mr Grassi, has led to speculation in Argentine media that the court investigation could eventually become a manslaughter probe.
Horrified tourist Bret Watson, who saw Liam fall to his death, revealed to TMZ earlier that the tragedy will forever remain ‘burned into his brain.’
‘It’s something that’s been burned into my brain and something I’m never going to forget,’ Mr Watson admitted.