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City keeps an eye on Merced

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Glendale News Press

GLENDALE — City officials said they will take a “wait and see” approach before pursuing possible legal action against Nancy Salas — the Glendale woman who faked her disappearance last month and set off a massive search — after Merced County prosecutors decided to charge her with filing a false police report.

The Glendale city attorney’s office is not planning to seek restitution from Nancy Salas’ parents, who reported her missing May 12 after she failed to return home from a morning run in Chevy Chase Canyon, Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

“Everything we did for her was the result of her parents [filing] a report to us,” Lorenz said.

Still, the city will monitor Merced County’s criminal case against Nancy Salas, who was charged Friday with a misdemeanor count of filing a false police report. City officials may reevaluate their position as details emerge from the Merced case, Lorenz said.

Her father, Henry Salas, said Saturday that his family had only heard about the charge from other sources.

“We haven’t heard anything official from them,” he said, speaking in Spanish.

The Merced County Superior Court received the file Tuesday and had yet to send out a notice, a county district attorney’s spokeswoman said.

Nancy Salas was at home Saturday, but her father said she would not speak publicly on the matter.

“We’re all surviving,” he said. “It hasn’t been an easy thing. I can’t say we are fine because it has affected us. But we are progressing.”

Police deemed Nancy Salas’ disappearance suspicious after discovering her cell phone and car keys at home. Soon after, police launched a massive search for the 22-year-old former UCLA student.

The search took a turn when police discovered that Salas had apparently convinced her parents she was graduating from UCLA, where she had not been enrolled since fall 2008.

Nearly two days after Nancy Salas was reported missing, she entered a downtown Merced carpet store, called 911 and reportedly told Merced police that she had been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. She later recanted her story when Glendale police officers picked her up and brought her back home, saying she feared the repercussions of lying to her friends and family about dropping out of UCLA.

“We have faith that something good is going to come out of this, maybe not for us, but for many others who may [see] things a little better,” her father said. “Something good has to come from this. We can’t just put ourselves in the negative.”

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