Attorney for witnesses in Salgado shooting faces $500,000 malpractice suit after a client was deported 21%
By Tanya Babbar26%
8/2/2026, 1:06:12 PM
Keywords: Ice, Kprc, Hugo Balderas Ibarra, Carlos Perez, Lorenzo Salgado, Malpractice Lawsuit, Deportation, Asylum, Negligence
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Availability Heuristic, and Halo Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 28.2% saturation with 170 hits. Analysis detected 649 faulty-reasoning hits from 602 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 27.9% and a BS Rank of 21% (24,235 of 30,584 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 79.20% of the article peer group.
Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, the attorney representing two witnesses to ICE’s fatal shooting of Lorenzo Salgado, is facing a $500,000 legal malpractice lawsuit from a couple after the man was deported to Mexico.
Adriena and Carlos Perez sued Balderas-Ibarra and his firm in June in Somervell County southwest of Dallas.
The lawsuit was first reported by KPRC.
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Adriena Perez is a citizen and Texas resident, but her partner, Carlos Perez, was allegedly deported to Mexico after Balderas-Ibarra represented him, the lawsuit states.
Perez was seeking asylum, according to the lawsuit.
The four-page lawsuit alleges Balderas-Ibarra and his firm “failed to comply with the standard of care and were negligent” in their handling of Carlos Perez’s asylum and immigration case.
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According to the lawsuit, the alleged negligence led to Carlos Perez’s deportation and “loss of income and earning capacity, suffering (and) mental anguish,” as well as loss of consortium, which is a legal claim a family member can bring when they lose a loved one.
Balderas-Ibarra and his law firm generally denied all the allegations in their response, court records show.
They argued that the Perez’s lawsuit is insufficient because it does not specify how exactly the firm mishandled the case.
“Defendants cannot defend themselves against such bare allegations,” Balderas-Ibarra and his law firm wrote in their answer.
They also filed a motion to move the lawsuit to Harris County.
Trey Hendershot, the attorney representing Balderas-Ibarra and his firm, said in a statement to the Chronicle that the firm does not comment on pending litigation.
Balderas-Ibarra was not available for comment Sunday afternoon.
An attorney for the Perez's was also not available Sunday afternoon.
Balderas-Ibarra has drawn attention recently for legal trouble beyond the civil.
He pleaded no contest to domestic violence charges in July in Florida and was sentenced to 12 months of supervised probation, an intervention program and 40 hours of community service, plus court costs, according to court records.
The victim in a statement to the court said she “endured cycles of physical and verbal abuse,” and that her daughter would have nightmares about Balderas-Ibarra.
Balderas-Ibarra was charged with family violence assault, a felony, against the same woman in Harris County a month after criminal charges were filed against him in Florida, according to court records.
The charges stemmed from an alleged incident at Hobby Airport in 2024 in which he allegedly threw her luggage on the ground, grabbed her neck and twisted it, impeding her breathing as bystanders watched, according to court records.
In response to questions about his criminal history, Balderas-Ibarra has suggested the media and the public “focus on the real issues.”
“Yes, I was facing criminal charges in Florida,” Balderas-Ibarra wrote on Facebook July 15.
“And while I maintain my innocence, I took a plea today so that I can finally put this behind me...
This is bigger than me.
We are in the midst of a fight for our people and I don’t want anything distracting us from that.”
If convicted, Balderas-Ibarra could face a disciplinary hearing with the state bar.
One of his clients, Jose Trinidad Rojas Pliego, was released from ICE custody last week after 22 days in a detention facility in Conroe.
Rojas Pliego was one of the witnesses who saw an ICE agent shoot and kill Lorenzo Salgado in early July.
His two other clients remain in detention.
Speakers
3speakers18%attributed speech494writer words
Selected voice
100%flagged-word coverageHugo Balderas-Ibarra
76 attributed words70% of attributed speech62% writer coverage
Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.
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Analysis
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