The fact that most criminal convictions come from plea bargians is the dirty little secret of the american criminal justice system. Its a cycle of over-charging crimes, setting unreasonable bail (based on the seriousness of the overcharge) then waiting for the defendents to crack. There are actually a lot of reasons why the system works like this. The biggest one, as you found out, is that many of the laws are parsed broadly enough so that multiple laws, of varying severities, apply to most individual criminal situation.

I once had a client who was charged with burglary, grand-theft auto (in zona its actually called theft of means, but its the same thing), posession of stolen property, theft and embezzlement. Know what he did? Messed up some dates and kept a rental car 4 days longer than the contract specified. You know what happened to him? Nothing. Because he had $30K to hire me and a house to put up for bail. The DA dropped the charges in exchange for him agreeing to pay for the 4 extra days. But if he had a Public defender like you probably did, and had to sit in jail with a bunch of murders and rapists for want of bail money like you did, he would have taken the first offer they gave him (which would have been something like a gross misdemeanor for theft and 2 years probation with no criminal record.)

Also, i will tell you this as a warning in case you ever have 10K to blow and come upon a dishonest lawyer. A lawyer who wants 10K as a retainer to do this for you is looking to get your 10K, file a motion, have the judge say no, and shrug his shoulders and say "hey i tried my best". Not trying to piss in your cornflakes, just giving you the real scoop.

A felony like this (especially one thats in the papers), if you had a quarter of a million to spend on lawyers and image building, and were willing to spend 5 years working the system (not 5 years in court, 5 years before you even did anything in court doing shit like volunteering in womens shelters and making yourself look like mother teresa): Then you'd be looking at a hail mary long-shot. And maybe not even that. It depends on the sentencing judge (who makes the decision to seal the record). I don't practice in michigan, but in the states where I do practice, even if you hauled a suitcase full of money into my office, about 2/3 of the time, id pull up your case on my computer, see the name of the sentencing judge, and say something to the effect of "sorry, you have literally zero chance. I cant take your money".