My friend's dad used to take "tags" or "plates" (the word you're looking for - not license), got busted a few times but surprisingly nothing serious in regards to punishment.

Hope you have a clean-ish record, take pics of the bolts in the plate holder, or put ones in and then take pics, tell them you have no reason to take the plates off, would be illogical for you to take them off, that you didn't realize the tags were taken and that, "your honor, i'm requesting a warning for failure to inspect my vehicle before operating it".

Good luck. Should be easy. Don't need to pay $1k for a lawyer to speak for 5 mins you are right about that.