I can send the money order, but will it get me off the hook. I mean how are they going to associate the money with this particular incident.

Is it better to get a lawyer and settle this. As i said before it was just stupid of me. I did one stupid thing after the other. I just want to resolve this, rather than making it worse.

I can think of two choices:
1> Get a lawyer, and settle this, as someone earlier suggested.
2> Since it's a huge mall, hope they don't bother pursuing this, and figure out what to do later, if they send me a letter for return fraud.