Bess Myerson, the former Miss America and New York City Cultural Affairs Commissioner who faces trial on Federal fraud and conspiracy charges next fall, was arrested in a small Pennsylvania town yesterday on a charge of shoplifting $44.07 in merchandise.
Miss Myerson was stopped by two private security guards as she left Hill's Department Store in South Williamsport, Pa., 55 miles north of Harrisburg, at 11:24 A.M. and strode toward her gray Lincoln Continental in the store's parking lot.
In her purse and a shopping bag, the store guards found six bottles of nail polish, five pairs of earrings, a pair of shoes and several packages of flashlight batteries for which Miss Myerson had not paid, said Charles E. Smith, the Chief of Police in South Williamsport. Prominent in New York
''She was all upset, she was just sick about it,'' said the chief. He arrested, fingerprinted, photographed and booked Miss Myerson at the headquarters of his five-member departmen, then took her before District Justice John M. McDermott in Magistrate's Court. She denied the charge and was released on $150 cash bail.
Miss Myerson, 63 years old, who was Miss America in 1945 and the city's Consumer Affairs Commissioner under Mayor John V. Lindsay, unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate in 1980 and has long been prominent in New York political circles.
She was a major force in Mayor Koch's election in 1977, accompanying Mr. Koch, her longtime friend, everywhere in the campaign. She was Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for four years until last year, when she resigned amid a growing scandal.
Mayor Koch, who wavered between silence and support for months and declared last September that he felt deceived by Miss Myerson and could no longer call her his friend, said yesterday when told of her arrest: ''If true, it's extraordinarily sad that this would have occurred.''
South Williamsport, a Susquehanna River town of 7,000 people best known as the site of the annual Little League World Series, is 10 miles north of Allenwood Federal Prison Camp, where Miss Myerson's companion, Carl A. Capasso, a former major construction contractor, is serving four years for evading income taxes on work he did for New York City. Conspiracy and Fraud Charges
