Several people connected to Liam Payne's death are facing formal charges in Argentina ... according to local reports in the Latin American country.
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00:00We are going to start with Liam Payne.
00:02So we have told you about the five people who have been in the crosshairs of authorities
00:10since Liam died.
00:12That would be his friend, a waiter, and three hotel employees.
00:16They have now been formally charged.
00:18Now, the way it works in Argentina is prosecutors recommend to a judge that people be charged,
00:27but a judge has to actually do the charging.
00:30That has now happened, and we want to focus particularly on two people.
00:37Roger Norris, who was Liam's very good friend, who accompanied him to Argentina, and a waiter
00:46by the name of Brian, who did drugs with Liam twice, but not the night he died.
00:53So let's start with Roger.
00:56The authorities had initially asked the judge to charge him with abandonment.
01:02He is not charged with abandonment.
01:04He's charged with homicide.
01:06Now it seems like that's worse, but actually for him it's better.
01:12Abandonment carries a 15-year sentence in Argentina.
01:17This kind of homicide, six months.
01:19I feel like you don't hear this much.
01:21Is this something here in the US as well, abandonment?
01:24I had never heard that before, so it was very surprising to hear that you could leave
01:28someone and then be charged with some aspect of their death.
01:32This has never made sense to me.
01:34This has never made sense, that a guy who doesn't have a contract to watch over somebody,
01:41a guy who is not a conservator, is criminally charged with lording over an adult.
01:49Well, it feels like everyone's just pointing fingers at someone else, and they're just
01:53trying to deflect it.
01:55There's a lot of weird stuff about this case.
01:58Number one, taking him, carting him upstairs by his arms and his legs, and then closing
02:03the door on someone.
02:06And leaving him alone.
02:07Oh, oh, by the way, you're on the third story.
02:09You got a balcony here.
02:10Just good luck for you.
02:11Well, not just that, but when the hotel, one of the hotel employees who carried him in
02:17the room, came out, called 911, and said specifically, we're concerned there's a balcony
02:24there, and he could kill himself.
02:26So if they said that, why didn't they have somebody stay in the room with him until an
02:32ambulance got there?
02:33I have to agree with you guys.
02:34It's bizarre, the charges against Roger and the hotel employees, but at least you can
02:39see some sort of possible duty that's implied under the law, because he had helped take
02:44care of him.
02:45What's the duty?
02:48Maybe the father relied upon him saying, I will take care of your son.
02:52The father doesn't have any authority or control over an adult son.
02:59Liam is his own person.
03:01So whatever the father is saying, it's like there's no contract between the father and
03:07Roger.
03:09And by the way, Roger was there three times that day.
03:14So exactly what is Roger's duty here?
03:18That's going to be the hardest part of the case to sort of wrestle with, and prosecutors
03:21will have to do something with that.
03:22The one that makes even less sense to me, though, is Brian Paez, who is a guy who seems
03:26like he partied with Liam, and it was days before the actual death.
03:30So I'm not sure how you link someone you party with, maybe do some drugs with, to his subsequent
03:35death from a balcony days later.
03:37That is absolutely bizarre.
03:38You would not see that in this country.
03:40Derek, I would think that he has more connection in my brain, because if he was the one handing
03:44over any types of drugs, if that was a possibility, that to me is more of a link than your friend.
03:49But that was two days before.
03:52We interviewed Brian Paez for our documentary, Liam Payne Who's to Blame, which is on Hulu
03:58right now.
04:00Here's what Brian said.
04:01They say I'm the dealer, that I carry drugs, that I sold them.
04:06And the truth is that no, no, I didn't sell them.
04:11Did you use drugs with Liam the first night you met him?
04:15Yeah, yeah, there was.
04:18What drugs did you use?
04:21There was cocaine, like, there wasn't even a lot of it.
04:27But we had some with the whiskey.
04:30Was it cocaine the first night or the second night?
04:34The second night, too.
04:36I didn't even accept his money, nothing.
04:39He wanted to give me his Rolex.
04:41I didn't accept it.
04:42I didn't accept anything.
04:45Just a drawing that he drew, which were part of my eyes, nose, mouth.
04:49So he says he didn't sell him drugs, but they did drugs at Liam's behest.
04:56Liam invited Brian to the hotel room.
04:58So a lot of people are saying that the authorities are looking for scapegoats here.
05:04And, you know, the hotel, as far as I'm concerned, that hotel, by throwing him in the room, leaving
05:10him alone, if there's any culpability, it feels like the hotel.
05:15But this is what happens with celebrity deaths.
05:19And they look for people to charge because they know it's so high profile.
05:24And I'm not, like, siding with one person in particular.
05:28It just feels to me, I don't understand Roger.
05:32I don't understand Brian.
05:35One of the hotel workers who did help him get drugs, I get it.
05:40But the big thing is the hotel.
05:43The hotel that let him alone in the room.
05:49And you could charge a hotel, it's not an individual, but they're not doing that.
05:54And it just feels like they are bending over backwards just to get some pound of flesh.
06:01Hi, my name is Luke Lundy from Hammond, New York.
06:05And I can't say I'm surprised that they're looking at a friend for this kind of thing
06:09because they end up being the closest person to them, especially when drugs are involved.
06:14Like you said, I don't know what kind of legal obligation they can find for him to have been
06:20there.
06:21But there's undoubtedly a moral obligation as being a close friend.
06:24But let me ask you something.
06:25What is the moral obligation?
06:28If your friend is doing drugs, what would you do when you see your friend going off
06:33the rails?
06:34What do you do?
06:35I would at least stay, maybe call some kind of some medical aid.
06:40I don't know how quickly that could have been.
06:42But at the very least, stay if you're aware of his drug use and the kind of habits he
06:47gets into.
06:48I mean, that's fair.