What sentence she might if convicted get depends on the value of the item in question. What was the refund she got out of this?
If her story is really true then she will pay a price for being very careless and totally clueless. But like the others here, I am not buying her story and I think any jury will also have a huge problem believing it. The story just doesn’t make sense. Why was she even looking at this same item on the shelf when she obviously didn’t want it since (according to her story) she wanted to return the one she already had for a refund? There would be no logical purpose to that. She doesn’t need to see one on the shelf. The only thing she needed to do was take the one she had to the return counter. But she left that in the car (or more likely at home), so returning that wasn’t her purpose in going in the store. Given that, the only reason it seems to me she would pick up the same item off the shelf that she supposedly did not want is to do what she is accused of doing: defrauding the store by “returning” the item she had just picked up off the shelf for a cash refund. She might have snowed you into buying it because you are her friend and want to believe her, but few others are really going to buy into this excuse.

