Three people have been charged in connection with the death of pop star and former One Direction member Liam Payne.
Last month, Payne’s death shocked the music industry when news broke that he fell to his death from the balcony of Buenos Aires’ CasaSur Palemo Hotel. The 31-year-old sustained “internal and external” hemorrhages after the fall, and a toxicology report revealed that he had a number of drugs in his system at the time of his passing, including cocaine, benzodiazepine, and alcohol.
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The Argentinian newspaper La Nacion reported that two people were charged and accused of supplying Payne with drugs, including one person who worked at the hotel where Payne was staying. A third person — described as a friend of Payne’s — has been accused of abandonment of a person. This individual allegedly wrongfully presented himself as Payne’s manager, did not notify Payne’s family with his issues with drugs, and did not respond to investigators’ calls on the day that Payne died. They could face a prison sentence of up to 15 years.
According to a press release from the National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s office No. 14 in Argentina, the injuries Payne sustained were caused by a fall from a height that “self-harm of any kind and/or physical intervention by third parties were ruled out.” Authorities said that Payne did not have a “reflex posture” to protect himself from the fall, leading them to believe that he “may have fallen in a state of semi- or total unconsciousness.”
The prosecution said that this ruled out the “possibility of a conscious or voluntary act on the part of the victim, since, in the state he was in, he did not know what he was doing nor could he understand it.”
Payne rose to fame in 2008 with One Direction after auditioning for the “ X Factor” in the UK. The band received global stardom with chart-topping hits like “What Makes You Beautiful,” “You and I,” and “Story of My Life.” Following the band’s hiatus in 2015, Payne — along with Niall Horan, Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, and Louis Tomlinson — went on to embark on solo careers. Payne released a single earlier this year.
