Tagger Gets 2 1/2-Year Jail Term in Plea-Bargain : Courts: David Hillo, whose friend was shot to death, receives sentence for various crimes.

David Hillo, the tagger whose bloody confrontation with a passerby became a symbol of the public’s anger over graffiti and minority complaints about the justice system, was sentenced to 905 days in jail Wednesday for crimes ranging from grand theft to vandalism.

The plea-bargain resolves a series of charges that have piled up against the tall, withdrawn 21-year-old since a friend, Cesar Arce, was shot to death at a freeway overpass where they were spraying graffiti.

Municipal Judge Leslie Dunn said she was “reluctantly” going along with the deal worked out between the defense and prosecution. She said that if Hillo violates the smallest condition of probation after his release from County Jail, “I will not hesitate to send you to state prison.”

Hillo admitted two probation violations and pleaded no contest to a third count of vandalism. He also pleaded no contest to grand theft from a person in connection with the theft of eyedrops and cold medicine from a Van Nuys Lucky store in June. He was originally charged with robbery for punching a security guard.

The charge was reduced because the guard was uninjured and the theft was minor, prosecutors said.

“This is an appropriate sentence,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. James Bozajian. But he said this should be the last time Hillo avoids prison. “His criminal activity is escalating,” he said.

Like a tagger version of Forrest Gump, Hillo, known as a follower rather than a leader, has been at the center of a series of high-profile cases. In January, he and Arce were painting graffiti under a Sun Valley freeway overpass when they got into a dispute with William Masters. Masters said he was writing down the license plate of their car when Arce and Hillo threatened him with a screwdriver and tried to rob him.

Hillo denied threatening Masters. In the ensuing confrontation, Masters shot and killed Arce and wounded Hillo. The district attorney’s office declined to file murder charges against Masters, citing inconsistencies in Hillo’s statements. That decision aroused anger among Latino activists, who said it showed a law enforcement bias.

As time passed, Hillo got into more high-profile trouble. In June, he was arrested with six others and charged with vandalism for marking up the area around Sherman Way and Kester Avenue in Van Nuys. That was the intersection where several friends were killed when their car was hit by an auto driven by a burglary suspect fleeing police, a case that brought renewed scrutiny of the Los Angeles Police Department’s pursuit policy.

Police said Hillo and his friends were tagging “something to do with ‘rest in peace.’ ”

After that arrest, a judge ordered Hillo held without bail, citing his history of repeated run-ins with the law. But in a decision that sparked yet another controversy, Hillo was released because of jail overcrowding. Within three hours, he was rearrested on the robbery charge.

Friends said Hillo stole the medication to treat a cold he contracted in jail.

Another low-level crime was elevated when Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn warned that the policy that allowed Hillo’s quick release threatened a “complete breakdown of law and order” in the city. Sheriff Sherman Block blamed a loophole in his jail crowding policy and said the mistake would not be repeated.

In court Wednesday, Hillo, a baby-faced man with short-cropped dark hair, answered softly when asked whether he understood that a plea of no contest was equivalent to a plea of guilty.

David Kestenbaum, Hillo’s attorney, said his friend’s death sent his client into a downward spiral that culminated in Wednesday’s sentence. The spiral was aggravated by the fact that the mother of Hillo’s 2-year-old child recently left him and moved to Arizona.

Kestenbaum said this is the first serious jail time Hillo has received. He said he hopes the message gets through to his client and helps him avoid doing “life on the installment plan.”