I know these major strategic decisions are made with a lot of thought about everything, so nothing I say below criticizes your handling. I recently got railroaded in court myself about an alleged civic bylaw infraction, and saw law officers smirkingly lie barefaced in court about the case, so I know that justice is by no means automatic.

It was found in the mid-era gay movement, though, (late 70's, early 80's) that resistance to such trivial charges was often very effective -- the police mainly relied on the embarrassment factor to get people to capitulate, and very little of what they presented had much impact with a judge. These cases were mostly found-ins in bars and baths raided on morals charges. In those days the embarrassment factor was pretty big for gays and often threatened to be life-destroying (careers, marriages). Judges were not sympathetic to gays but still were limited to following the law. The sheer weight of numbers of people pleading innocent and getting off or getting absolute discharges was a strong deterrent to further police capriciousness.

Even if you have no money, the feeling that you have some community moral support is a big help to fighting back, and perhaps the best thing we can do is to offer our encouragement to anyone who is being threatened in this way.

It does help to be a sunnuva-bitch to fight unjust charges -- a great Canadian gay liberationist who fought a cabinet minister and won (in a case involving a false allegation of underage sexual contact) was quoted as saying, "you don't piss on a skunk." Not everyone is qualified to be a skunk.