A hotel worker who was accused of selling drugs to Liam Payne before the One Direction singer fell to his death has handed himself in.
Ezequiel David Pereyra, 21, reportedly fled after the charges were laid, but is now said to have negotiated his surrender to authorities through his lawyer.
The police went to his home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires on Friday with an arrest warrant to place him in preventive detention, but could not locate him.
Pereyra’s unnamed lawyer informed officials yesterday that his client would turn himself in at a building in the Argentine capital, according to reports.
A source told the respected local newspaper La Nación: “After Friday’s operation, a place where the police believed he was working and other residential addresses were put under surveillance and due to pressure he did the right thing with the help of his lawyer.” .
Pereyra was suspended from his job at the Hotel CasaSur Palermo, where Liam jumped to his death from his third-floor balcony on October 16 after consuming alcohol and drugs.
It is now understood that he was formally read his rights before being detained so he could be taken to prison by order of Judge Laura Bruniard.
The judge had ordered his arrest when he did not comply with the 24-hour deadline to surrender to preventive detention after she accused him on December 27 of supplying drugs to the British singer.
The One Direction star, 31, died on October 16 after falling from a third-floor balcony of the CasaSur Palermo hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
A photo showing another alleged trafficker, Braian Nahuel Paiz, with Liam Payne, supposedly during their first arranged meeting at a hotel. Brainain denies drug trafficking
A drone view shows the balcony of the CasaSur Hotel from where Payne fell to his death. Hotel staff are charged with manslaughter for failing to keep him safe before he fell from the balcony on October 16.
Prosecutors confirmed late last month that the judge had accused Pereyra of “selling cocaine to Liam on October 15 at 3:25 a.m. and between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. on October 16 so that he could consume it during his stay at the hotel”.
They also claimed that witness statements and CCTV analysis supported the allegation that Pereyra had received US$100 from Liam to buy narcotics from him and that the singer had sent a car to his house on another occasion to pick up more drugs.
In November, TMZ published footage showing Liam exiting an elevator at the Hotel CasaSur Palermo and chatting with a man it identified as Pereyra shortly before the singer died, alleging that the 31-year-old had asked him for “seven grams of the same”. drug that he had given him before.
Like Liam’s other alleged trafficker, Braian Nahuel Paiz, Pereyra faces a prison sentence of between four and 15 years if convicted of the charges.
Paiz was arrested on Friday at his home in Berazategui, southeast of Quilmes, near Buenos Aires, so that he could begin his preventive detention.
His lawyer Fernando Madeo had previously claimed it was “impossible” for the charges against his client to stand after Liam’s death at the hotel.
He also insisted that the 24-year-old was the victim of a “witch hunt” sparked by authorities’ desire to find culprits.
Waiter Paiz, who met Liam at a restaurant in the exclusive Buenos Aires neighborhood of Puerto Madero where he had gone to eat with his girlfriend Kate Cassidy and friends, confessed to having used drugs with the singer at the hotel where he died, but refuted the accusations. They sold him narcotics.
Liam Payne in his latest Snapchat story. Investigators believe he fell unconscious while trying to climb up a balcony.
The other three men charged, Liam’s close friend Roger Nores, the hotel’s head receptionist, Esteban Grassi, and the hotel’s head of security, Gilda Martin, have been charged with manslaughter but have been allowed to remain. released while the process continues.
They face between one and five years in prison if convicted of the charges, although they have been told they could be eligible for suspended prison sentences.
Laura Bruniard blamed hotel bosses for their decision to move Liam from the lobby to his third-floor room when he was unable to stand due to his previous drunkenness and drugs, saying it “created a legally unacceptable risk”. “to his life” that had “foreseeable” consequences.
Argentine prosecutors referred to Liam’s friend Roger Nores in a lengthy statement they released last week as the “victim’s representative,” although they only identified him by his initials RLN.
Judge Bruniard in her indictment accused the businessman, currently disqualified from leaving Argentina due to the charges against him, of “breaching his duty of care, assistance and help” towards the singer and “abandoning him to his fate, knowing that I could do it.” “He was unable to take care of himself, aware that he suffered multiple addictions to alcohol and cocaine and fully aware of the state of drunkenness, vulnerability and helplessness in which he found himself.”
Roger Nores, an Argentine businessman and friend of Liam, has been charged with negligent homicide. He had previously denied being investigated over the death of Liam Payne.
Police were reportedly chasing the second man accused of selling drugs to Liam Payne last night after arresting bartender Braian Paiz (pictured).
Nores said in a recent TMZ documentary examining the life and death of Liam Payne that he was “in good spirits and perfectly balanced” on the day of his death and refuted claims that the singer was acting erratically and was intoxicated shortly before. of his fatal fall.
The businessman had previously protested his innocence and refuted claims that he was Liam’s “de facto” manager.
He said in a statement shortly after it emerged he was being officially investigated before being charged: “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 in the hotel lobby chatting and joking with him when I left.
“I never would have imagined something like this would happen.
‘I gave my statement to the prosecutor on October 17 as a witness and since then I have not spoken to any police officer or prosecutor.
‘I wasn’t Liam’s manager. He was just my very dear friend.