My question involves criminal law for the state of: Bloomington, Minnesota (Hennepin County)
Hi. I'm in a bit of a pickle. Me and my girlfriend are 25 and 24 and we moved into new townhouse and after a few months we decided to have some people over for a night of fun. During the party one of the guests showed up with a couple of street signs he had taken off of a pole somewhere in he neighborhood. Long story short he eventually left because he was beyond drunk and ended up leaving the signs behind. I didn't think anything of it at the time and didn't even worry about them being there, but at about 4am the police arrived due to a noise complaint.
Now we were all, needless to say, intoxicated and obviously oblivious to the amount of noise we were making. And, of course, they saw the signs on the floor as they entered the house off the back porch. One of the officers flat out said "someone fess up to taking these or I take the home-owner to jail" we tried explaining that the person who did was no longer there and when that didn't get through to him people started speaking up and saying "I took them" in an attempt to take blame away from me. My girlfriend, also getting worked up and upset, also said "Fine, I took them! Are you happy now?"
They eventually saw that they weren't getting anywhere and left telling me that charges could be filed.
Sure enough I get a summons today to appear in court for posession of stolen property 609.53.1 and permitting public nuisance 609.745. And to top everything off the date is on a day when I'm supposed to be in London for work...
The questions:
1.) A public nuisance? Shouldn't there be some kind of warning or something instead of just straight getting a criminal record over having a party? It's not like we've ever had giant parties before or plan to again for that matter.
2.) Is it possible to change my court date at all? And if so, how do I do that? I'd rather not have to, but unfortunately the trip for work can not be rescheduled.
3.) I realize that possession of stolen property is against the law (I used to be in loss prevention), but in a circumstance like this shouldn't there be some kind of understanding? I have no criminal record at all and don't cause problems and don't have run-ins with the law. The police report I got with the summons didn't even mention that it was no one present at the time that took them. It seems that they wan't to try and pin it on the girlfriend because they included her angered statement from above in the report and not anyone elses.
I'm at a loss here, I don't know what to do. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you very much in advance!

