AFTER 2 YEARS ON RUN, MAN GETS JAIL TERM : EX-FUGITIVE REFORMED SELF, FRIENDS SAY.

Byline: Laurence Darmiento Daily News Staff Writer

A Valencia man who spent nearly two years as a fugitive and was caught while working as an executive headhunter in New York City was sentenced Friday to a year in jail, but also could face time in state prison.

Robert Mehall, 27, was dealt the county jail term by Superior Court Judge Judith Ashmann for violating probation in a 1992 theft case. He still awaits sentencing on subsequent felony fraud charges that prompted him to flee.

The son of a retired Burbank police detective, Mehall jumped $10,000 bail in December 1993 while facing charges that he used bogus credit cards to purchase clothing from a Valencia Town Center store the previous month.

The fraud charges potentially subjected him to prison twice over - once in themselves and also as a violation of the probation he had been given earlier for stealing cash and goods from Billy's, a sporting goods store in Newhall. He worked at the store as a manager.

At the hearing Friday in North Valley Superior Court, prosecutors sought to have Mehall sentenced to prison, but attorney Darryl Mounger successfully countered that would be too harsh.

``He is not the same person he was. Here is a kid who has rehabilitated himself,'' Mounger said. ``This is a young person who deserves another chance. While he was a fugitive he was a model citizen except for his fugitive status.''

Mounger said many were eager to tell the court about their confidence that Mehall is rehabilitated.

``We had letters from co-workers, his employer in New York. He had probably 16 family members there and his fiancee,'' Mounger said.

While on the run, Mehall first worked as a ski instructor in the Vail, Colo., area, where he met his fiancee. He then eventually found his way to New York City, where he got a job on Wall Street, investigators have said.

When arrested, he had been working for several months as a recruiter with a personnel firm that places job candidates in financial, computer and other technical jobs, investigators said.

While acknowledging Mehall did not get into trouble while a fugitive, Deputy District Attorney Ken Barshop said he felt the man deserves prison for his past offenses.

``I can't tell you if (he rehabilitated himself), but he did betray a trust,'' Barshop said. ``He betrayed a trust to the entire judicial system. He committed three new felonies while on probation. He goes to another state. He gets a new name. He gets a new Social Security number.''

Mehall could have been sentenced on both cases Friday, but Ashmann decided instead to handle only the probation violation. When he has finished serving the jail term, he will face the judge again on the fraud charges, which also carry a prison term.

That could be soon. Mehall has been in custody since March 28, and with standard ``good time'' credit, already has served the equivalent of 120 days of the one-year sentence, Mounger said.

Because of overcrowding and a limit placed on the number of inmates in the county jail in a federal consent decree, county jail inmates now serve, on the average, less than 40 percent of their sentence, officials said.

Mounger said that he will argue again to keep his client out of prison. Also still to be determined is the amount of restitution that Mehall owes to the sporting goods store.

Barshop said the figure is about $25,000. He acknowledged Mehall could complete restitution sooner if kept out of prison, but called for more punishment on the credit card fraud.

``He could be getting out of jail quick and going back even quicker,'' Barshop said. ``Hope springs eternal.''