Liam Payne’s accused drug dealer breaks silence amid death probe

Article content

One of the suspects who has been charged in connection with Liam Payne’s death is speaking out for the first time, denying accusations that he supplied the One Direction star with the drugs that led to his death.

Article content

Braian Nahuel Paiz admitted to meeting with Payne and taking narcotics with the pop star prior to his death last month after he fell from his hotel room in Buenos Aires. But Paiz denied supplying the late singer with the drugs that played a part in his death.

“We took drugs together but I never took drugs to him or accepted any money,” Paiz told local news outlet Telefe Noticias in an interview transcribed by the New York Post, TMZ and Us Weekly. “I have messages where he’s offering me money because he was apparently used to offering money for everything but I never accepted anything.”

Paiz alleges that he and Payne met up at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel after they crossed paths during the Teardrops hitmaker’s Argentinian vacation a few weeks prior to his death on Oct. 16.

Article content

Article content

“I never supplied Liam with drugs,” Paiz mainated. “Liam’s first contact with me was at my place of work. We swapped details and saw each other later that night. It was all normal. He came down from his hotel room to fetch me because I had got lost.”

The two ended up partying together on the Sunday before Payne died.

“Our second hotel meeting was on the night of Sunday October 13. We spent the night together, we consumed drugs because the truth is that something intimate happened,” he said. “When I left he wanted to give me some clothes so that I had a memory of being with him but I left it behind the TV because I didn’t want to take it. It was some grey jogging bottoms and a T-shirt.”

Payne’s friend Rogelio “Roger” Nores also addressed his alleged involvement in the Teen Choice Award winner’s death.

Article content

“I never abandoned Liam. I went to his hotel three times (the day he died) and left 40 minutes before this happened,” he told the Daily Mail in a statement. “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. … I’m really heartbroken with this tragedy, and I’ve been missing my friend every day.”

Last week, police charged three people in connection with Payne’s death.

Prosecutor Andres Madrea charged the three suspects  — who were initially unidentified — with ​​the crimes of “abandonment of a person followed by death” and “supplying and facilitating the use of narcotics,” the prosecutor’s office said. 

Payne died last month at the age of 31 after he fell from the third-floor balcony of his hotel room in the upscale neighbourhood of Palermo while vacationing in the Argentine capital. According to AP, an autopsy showed internal bleeding and 25 traumatic injuries to his skull, limbs and abdomen, consistent with a fall. It said those injuries alone were enough to cause Payne’s death.

Article content

TMZ and ABC News also reported that Payne “had multiple substances in his system” when he fell.

One of the illicit substances found in Payne’s body, ABC reported, was “pink cocaine,” also known as Tusi, a popular party drug that was also named in the lawsuit against Sean “Diddy” Combs as one of his alleged go-to drugs. The drug does not contain cocaine and is made up of methamphetamine, ketamine and MDMA, according to the U.S. National Capital Poison Center.

Sources told TMZ that police found a bottle of alcohol in Payne’s room, as well as prescription medications — “namely, anti-anxiety meds.”

Payne’s autopsy also revealed traces of cocaine, crack and benzodiazepine, which is a depressant, were present in his body at the time of his death.

Article content

Additionally, ABC reported that “an improvised aluminum pipe to ingest drugs was also found in his hotel room.”

In the leadup to Payne’s death, 911 audio detailed a frantic scene in the hotel as staff sought medical help dealing with the troubled star.

Last month, the U,K, Sun, the Associated Press and Argentinian outlet La Nacion translated an emergency call made by the manager of the CasaSur in which the person could be heard saying a guest was “overwhelmed with drugs and alcohol” and “putting his life at risk.”

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

Play Video

By the time medics arrived, Payne had already jumped, with his body found in the inside courtyard of the hotel, where he was pronounced dead.

Pablo Policicchio, the communications director for the Buenos Aires Security Ministry, said in a statement to the AP that Payne “had jumped from the balcony of his room.” 

Article content

Local police told TMZ previously that they believed Payne had been high on “cristal,” a substance “known to cause psychotic attacks and hallucinations” and “causes users to experience extreme highs and extreme lows, often making them aggressive.”

The pursuit of charges in Payne’s death mirrors how law enforcement went after people close to Friends star Matthew Perry, after he died of a ketamine overdose a year ago. Following an investigation that lasted more than six months, authorities charged Perry’s personal assistant and several doctors with helping supply him with the drugs that led to his death.

[email protected]

Article content