Legal Question in Criminal Law in New York

My friend and i got arrested for Petty theft a couple weeks ago at walmart. It totalled about $70. This"undercover" protection oficer stopped us at the door and asked us to come back to his office. He made me empty my purse. Then he asked for our ID's but since they were in the car he said he had to call the cops. We got "arrested", no handcuffs or anything. The cop didnt even read us rights or anything. We went willing and corroporated with everyone. The Protections officer said he wasn't going to ban us because we were nice and didn't give him any trouble. So we got fingerprinted and got a ticket for a court date coming up on August 5th. This is our first offense ever and we are hoping to get it reduced for an infraction. So now what do we do? Do we ask for the free attorney appointed by the court? Do we even need an attorney or can we just represent ourselves in court? It's a small town court. So i figured the cases would be for smaller offenses. If we represent ourselves, do we just ask for a diversion program when the time comes? How do we plea? If we get an attorney, do we get it the day we are there? Like can this all be resolved on Monday if we did it ourselves?
Also, if we do get community service, which we are hoping for at this point, can you do that in other states? We've been planning to move back down south together really soon (Next 2 weeks) and we just want to be able to get down there without this causing problems towards it too. I heard your can transfer the obligations between states pretty easily.

Asked on 8/03/13, 1:17 pm

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Free attorney? Are you indigent?

Answered on 8/04/13, 4:19 am

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