“Judge, may I address the court. We’re ready to go.”

That was U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan appearing in state county court. From the Miami Herald:

U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan, a former Miami-Dade judge, made a recent return to the state courthouse to watch a trial — involving a minor car crash.

Fajado appeared recently in support of her niece, who was the victim in a fender-bender accident in West Miami-Dade. Fajardo never identified herself on the record nor said she was the top federal prosecutor in South Florida.

But when the judge called the case, Fajardo did speak up, schooling the courtroom’s young prosecutors who appeared to be waffling on whether to proceed to trial against the woman who hit her niece’s car.

“Judge, may I address the court. We’re ready to go,” Fajardo said, according to the audio of the Oct. 22 hearing. “The issue is restitution. I told them you can reserve restitution, per statute, for 60 days to produce the deductible. They seem to think they can’t proceed forward. So I’m here on behalf of my niece, who has now missed school all day. I’m not understanding why we can’t go forward without restitution.”