Legal Question in Criminal Law in California

You are withholding the most important piece of evidence in your case from your lawyer, so I'm not sure what else you can do. Public defenders tend to have very large caseloads, so they have to use their time wisely. Since you refuse to provide the details of what happened, your PD probably felt there was little point in continuing the conversation.

The District Attorney can prove you knew the property was stolen through circumstantial evidence. Since somebody recognized the stuff on Craigslist, I'm assuming that it had a pretty substantial value and was unique in some way -- for instance, had serial numbers. It was probably stolen recently; it looks worse if there were multiple items, all stolen and listed around the same time.

At this point, your defense is "I received the stolen property from some other unidentified person as payment, which got me charged with a crime, but I'm still going to protect this person." If the District Attorney introduces statements you made to the police as evidence, your attorney may be able to get the explanation in front of a jury as part of the same statement; otherwise, you will probably have to testify.

Of course, I'm filling in some details with guesswork, and you shouldn't post a lot of detail on a public site like Avvo where it's visible to the prosecution and the police.

Your attorney is in the best position to know what you can do to help. If you refuse to identify the person who gave you the stolen property, you are choosing to limit your attorney's ability to effectively defend you.