Date of Offense
Offense(s)
Official Statement
Deputy Yosvani Quesada should be identified as a Brady/Giglio concern based on the February 11, 2026 traffic stop of Kathleen “Katie” Thomas in Lake Worth Beach, Florida. Public reporting states that Deputy Quesada cited Thomas for allegedly holding or manipulating a cellphone with her right hand while driving, despite the fact that Thomas was born without a right hand and displayed that fact to him during the encounter. Body-camera footage reportedly shows Thomas raising her right arm and directly contradicting the factual basis for the citation, yet Deputy Quesada issued the citation anyway.
This incident presents a direct officer-credibility concern. The defect is not merely that Deputy Quesada may have been mistaken in his initial observation. The Brady/Giglio issue arises because the alleged factual basis for enforcement was visibly contradicted at the scene, on body-camera footage, before the citation was issued. An officer who persists in enforcement after the factual predicate has been materially undermined creates impeachment evidence bearing on observation reliability, report accuracy, investigative judgment, abuse of authority, and candor.
The citation was later dismissed after Deputy Quesada requested dismissal for insufficient evidence, and the hearing was cancelled after the dismissal was granted. That later dismissal does not cure the credibility problem. It confirms that the enforcement action lacked adequate evidentiary support, while the intervening public release of body-camera footage raises a serious question whether the matter would have been corrected absent public scrutiny.
For Brady List purposes, this matter should be treated as potentially material impeachment evidence in any case relying on Deputy Quesada’s observations, sworn statements, reports, citations, probable-cause assertions, or testimony. The incident supports classification under officer credibility, false or unsupported statement, failure of candor, abuse of authority, and unreliable observation-based enforcement. Prosecutors, defense counsel, courts, and supervising agencies should not treat this as an isolated traffic-ticket error; it is a documented incident in which the officer’s asserted observation was contradicted by an obvious physical fact and then withdrawn only after the charge became publicly indefensible.
Accordingly, Deputy Yosvani Quesada should remain subject to Brady/Giglio disclosure review unless and until Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, the responsible prosecuting authority, and the courts can document complete corrective action, full disclosure to affected defendants, and a reliable review of all cases in which his testimony or observations were material.
