Hi there -
Just looking for advice as I have never shoplifted or have been involved negatively in the law in any way. I am not going to make excuses just state what happened: I went to my local grocery store and bought items and took my receipt. When I got home I saw that another receipt was attached to it and I saw that there was an item on that receipt for 10.49. I went back to that store and took the item off of the shelf and tried to return the item at the courtesy desk. As I said, I am not a seasoned criminal and was so awful at it - I was openly looking at the receipt in the aisle, etc. Long story short - I returned the item, they gave me the money, and I left - a few seconds later a plainclothes police officer approached me in the parking lot and asked me to come inside. I did and gave the money back and explained what I had done. He asked for my license and took a copy of that and acknowledged that I was a first time offender. However, he did tell me that I would be receiving a summons within 30 days to appear in court and that I was being charged with (I'm not sure how he worded it here - it was very fast and I was in shock) but some form of shoplifting charge. He did not have me sign anything though and neither did the store. Is that standard procedure? Should someone have had me sign something or is it possible that he was just trying to scare me and because it was 10 dollars I might not get a summons. I'm not excusing what I did but just asking - I thought it was odd that he didn't ask me to sign anything and on top of that he kind of questioned me/ made up a date and said, "When you were working at so and so in 1993 you didn't get charged with some sort of felony there??" - I looked at him quizzically (again, don't have a record at all) and said, "I didn't even work at so and so in 1993?" and then he relented and said, "Well maybe I meant 2003..." and I'm thinking, is he trying to freak me out here or what is really going on? If anyone out there has some advice for me I would really appreciate it. I know what I did was wrong and I deserve punishment for it.