Do I need a Lawyer when I go to Court for a Shoplifting Felony?

Do I need a Lawyer when I go to Court for a Shoplifting Felony?

Hi. I really am not a bad person and I do not want to be judged at all by this. My name is Molly and I grew up in a small town, with an awesome family and great support from them my entire life. I recently moved away from home to an apartment near my college and this is when my life (and my luck) went downhill.

I got a fake ID since I now live in a college town and have a need to use it to go out to bars. I got pulled over on the 28th of August going 75 in a 60 (I seriously thought the speed limit was 65, so as my boyfriend who is a cop said that going 10 over the speed limit is never a problem). As I pulled out my wallet to get my drivers license, the cop saw my fake ID in one of the credit card slots (yes, he saw about a centimeter of the ID) and asked me to hand it to him. So, at this point I have a ticket for speeding, which my sister (who is a lawyer) told me to show up to court for, since you never know what kind of judge you get.

Now, today, I was in the mall shopping for a neon party which was tonight and went into H&M. For some damn reason, I decided to steal a pair of leggings, a shirt and some stupid tube top that I didn’t even like. The total of the items came to .73. I walked out of the door and when I was about 100 yards away some man yanked me by my jacket and dragged me back to the store, yelling at me saying I’m a fool and that I “stole from his store.”

After being humiliated in front of a billion people in the mall, he takes me to a back room of the store and calls in 3 security officers and makes a call to the Baltimore County police. The security guards and the man from H&M were totally harrassing me, going through my purse and my wallet, making comments about my depression medication and how I will now be suicidal. They also took out all my cash (0) and laid it out on the table .. pointing to each bill saying, “oh, she couldn’t use this 50 dollar bill,” and “oh, look she had a 100 dollar bill, but she’s white girl.” They also kept saying, typical code 2, typical .. referring to me being white, as opposed to black. Their harassing went on for about 20 minutes, they went through my receipts in my wallet, commenting on the amount of coffee i buy from starbucks and my recent purchases of bathing suits .. and this was al going on until the cop showed up.

This man was SO nice to me, and understanding and not an asshole at all. He explained to me what he was writing down and what I had done. He did not treat me with disrespect or was not rude at all. I signed a piece of paper at H&M that stated that I was not to go back into the store ever again, and if I did it would be trespassing.

Now, I received a letter in the mail about 3 weeks ago saying that I could do 16 hours of community service before October 16 for my false identification charge. I finished my 16 hours within the deadline.

I am not sure how this works, but I believe I was put on probation. Since I just got this shoplifting charge, will I now have to go to court for my fake ID since I broke the probation time? Also, should I get a lawyer for my shoplifting charge? What are the possible things I could get charged with? When, and how, can I get this off my record.

p.s. I have told my parents about the speeding ticket and fake ID charge, but no way in hell could I tell them about the shoplifting felony. So, I am going to have to do this all on my own.

Please help me!!
Will I be going to court for my fake ID possession too, though?
I am 19, so not a minor. Also, I just got charged today and they did not give me any copies of papers or anything. So I am confused too!

Tags: court, Felony, Lawyer, need, shoplifting

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