A National City man is accused of molesting two teenage girls.

According to National City police, 33-year-old Anthony Garza was arrested Monday. He faces charges of continuous sexual abuse, lewd acts with a child under 14 and forcible sexual penetration.

Police say the alleged victims, ages 15 and 17, were Garza’s girlfriend’s daughters.

The mother allegedly ran at Garza with a knife after she found out, according to officials. Her son was cut trying to take the knife from her.

The 15-year-old told police he had been molesting her for five years.

Garza was booked into jail on $500,000 bail.

Imperial Beach Border Patrol agents are dealing with a new and unique problem. They say a specific group of people from Eastern Europe, known as Roma, are crossing illegally into the United States through Mexico seeking asylum.

Agent Gregory Bovino says these travelers want to be caught.

“We have seen them remain in the same area for several minutes just so they can wave down an agent. There’s no attempt to go into the bushes,” Bovino told NBC 7.

Bovino says his agents make several arrests every week. After processing the Roma immigrants, they’re handled by Enforcement and Removal Operations, which works under U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If the person or group of people do not have significant criminal histories or other reasons to be detained, they are often released.

According to Border Patrol statistics, there were 23 arrests of Roma crossing illegally into the U.S. in the San Diego sector during the 2011-2012 fiscal year. That number jumped to 250 last year. This year, so far, there have been 111 arrests in the U.S. All have been out of Imperial Beach.

Border patrol agents admit this issue it taking a toll.

“Definitely, when we have those groups come across, it detracts from border security,” Bovino said.

More than manpower, the issue is costing taxpayer money. Metal gates worth tens of thousands of dollars are being put up along the Imperial Beach border to keep all undocumented immigrants out.

NBC 7 spoke to San Diego State University Professor Ron King, who has studied Romanian politics for nearly two decades. He says the Roma are a discriminated group, but the ones entering the United States do not represent the majority.

“What it sounds like is somebody found the route in a cute way of doing it, brought out their immediate family and word got out to the community, and now you have some stragglers trying it again,” King said. “Unless it proliferates to many other groups, which I think is unlikely, it will decline or hold steady and be a minor exception to the broad immigration issues affecting the United States.”

Although King does not believe this is a growing problem, the agents at Imperial Beach told NBC 7 it's certainly significant.

A San Diego man is accused of running a “revenge porn” scheme by posting revealing photos of women online then making them pay hundreds of dollars to have the photos removed.

Kevin Bollaert, 27, is charged with 31 felony counts of conspiracy, identity theft and extortion involving 16 women. Bollaert posted $50,000 bail and was released from jail Tuesday night.

This case, which is first of its kind, was filed by state Attorney General Kamala Harris on Tuesday.

According to court documents, Bollaert ran the website YouGotPosted.com, where investigators say he posted more than 10,000 sexually explicit photos of women. The site included links to the women’s social media accounts.

Bollaert allegedly received the photos from ex-boyfriends and ex-husbands of the women.

The arrest warrant says that Bollaert also created ChangeMyReputation.com, where he allegedly charged the women $300 to $350 have their pictures removed from YouGotPosted.com

Both websites have been shut down.

Investigators traced Bollaert’s activities to a mail drop on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach. His last known address was in the 1600-block of Hotel Circle. Database records indicate he spent just two months there in 2010.

According to investigators, Bollaert made $900 a month off advertising on his websites and thousands more from women desperate to have their pictures removed.

One woman emailed Bollaert:

Why others can ruin lives like this is beyond me. But please! Remove my photos.

Another alleged victim begged:

PLEASE HELP! I am scared for my life! People are calling my work place and they obtained that information from this site.

In the arrest warrant, Bollaert is quoted as telling investigators: "I feel bad about the whole thing and like, I just don't want to do it anymore. I mean, I know a lot of people are getting screwed over like, on the site. Like, lives are getting ruined."

NBC 7 has learned that a Chicago attorney filed a civil suit against Bollaert months before these charges were brought.

Last July, Atty. Charles Mudd sued Bollaert and his website for posting 14 nude photos of his client, her name and where she works.

"She is a young woman who is just starting her adult life and career," Mudd said in a phone interview. "It is a form of bullying. It is a form of extortion. It's horrific to them."

In October, a new law went into effect in California that prohibits posting identifiable nude photos online after a breakup, punishable with a $1,000 fine or six months in jail.

"I applaud California. I think the statute they have out there is fantastic," Mudd said from Chicago. "I think there needs to be a movement to protecting individuals."

Bollaert’s first court appearance was scheduled for Dec. 17.

Time magazine’s Person of the Year is Pope Francis.

Time's managing editor Nancy Gibbs announced the pick on NBC News’ "Today" show on Wednesday.

"So much of what he has done in his brief nine months in office has really changed the tone that is coming out of the Vatican," Gibbs said in explaining why the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholics earned the top spot. "He is saying, 'We are about the healing mission of the church, and not about the theological police work that had maybe been preoccupying us.'"

It's the third time the magazine has named a pope its person of the year. Pope John Paul made the cover in 1994 and Pope John XXIII in 1962.

Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi told "Today" in a statement that "the Holy Father is not looking to become famous or to receive honors. But if the choice of Person of Year helps spread the message of the gospel — a message of God's love for everyone — he will certainly be happy about that."

The top nod goes to the person who Time editors think most impacted the news this year, in a positive or in a negative way.

Francis was elected pope in March, just weeks after the sudden abdication of his predecessor, Pope Emeritus Benedict. Since then, the Argentinian has been praised for a simpler and more humble approach to the papacy. He has called for a more austere Church that focuses on the poor and has promised to clean up the Vatican's finances.

Francis has also warned that Catholic Church's obsession with abortion, gays and contraception will hurt the church if it doesn't become more welcoming.

"The church sometimes has locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules," he said in a candid  interview with La Civilta Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit magazine in September.  "The most important thing is the first proclamation: Jesus Christ has saved you. And the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy above all."

Previously archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis became the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years and the first South American pope.

Prior to announcing the Person of the Year, Gibbs revealed the five finalists. Former National Security Administration contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked thousands of top-secret documents about U.S. surveillance programs, ranked second on Time’s list.

Gay rights activist Edith Windsor, whose Supreme Court victory led to the fall of the Defense of Marriage Act was number three; Syrian President Bashar Assad was number four and Texas Tea Party darling Sen. Ted Cruz, a leader in the anti-Obamacare showdown that shut the federal government earlier this year, was number five.

"He divided even his own party," Gibbs said, adding that Cruz "is a significant symbol of where our politics is heading."

Final contenders this year also included Amazon Founder Jeff Bezos, singer Miley Cyrus, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and President Barack Obama.

Obama was named Person of the Year in 2012 and in 2008. In 2011 the magazine awarded the title to the Protester, recognizing those who sparked the Arab Spring.

From stolen cars to stolen jewelry and electronics, property crimes in California have escalated.

Researchers say that's probably because of the state's controversial prison "realignment" program that began in October 2011.

A leading think tank, the Public Policy Institute of California, predicts that as the state's overcrowded prison population shrinks under federal court orders, property crime rates are likely to keep rising.

A PPIC report issued this week links a 3.4 percent statewide increase in violent crime last year to a "broader upward trend" also seen in other states.

But when it comes to auto theft -- up nearly 15 percent, the highest rate in the West -- researchers tell a different story, and note that overall property crime was up 7.6 percent in 2012.

Now, they point out, 18,000 offenders who otherwise would be behind bars under former statutes are getting more “street time."

Said the PPIC report’s authors Magnus Lofstrom and Steven Raphael: “In particular, our analysis suggest that more crimes, between 3.5 and 7 times as many, would be prevented by spending an additional dollar on policing rather than on prison incarceration.”

Says Cynthia Burke, criminal justice research director for the San Diego Assn. of Governments: “Incarceration is not the hammer that it was before … when you look a individuals who are coming out of prison, parole revocations, they could've gone back a year to prison before. Now they can get a maximum of 180 days, not even considering credit for time served in our local jails. They're out on the street for longer periods of time."

While there are sporadic mass roundups and individual parole and probation checks, estimates are that offenders released under realignment average two to three property crimes a year.

But here in San Diego County, which offers innovative rehabilitation programs, auto theft actually decreased by 1 percent -- year to year -- between January and June, and overall property crimes rose only 4 percent during that period.

Meantime, the local recidivism rate has been cut in half, to 34 percent.

"The highlights are to make sure that those people that are coming out of custody are picked up, taken to their treatment, worked and monitored and held accountable for their behavior,” says San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. “But the programs they are put into have been developed and have what we call 'best practices', or have been proven to get good results."

Law enforcement's top brass are cautiously optimistic about prospects for long-term stability.

"We're getting there,” says San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne. “It's just that we're all struggling with some issues of budget. Struggling with issues of space. There are solutions. But they've got to be solutions that we all work on, and we're all at the same table."

The state is only giving the counties two-thirds of the funding the Department of Corrections used to spend on the inmates involved.

Corrections officials are now looking to expand both in-state and out-of-state lockup space, to meet an April 1 extended federal court deadline.

Jesse Garcia thought everything was fine-- until he tried to buy a new car.

"I go to the credit union, and they tell me they are denying me and I couldn't figure out why," Garcia said. 

He had just finished paying off a car loan and was shocked he couldn't get another one, until he checked his credit report and found a credit card for which he did not apply.  That credit card was in default.

"Somebody stole my identity," Garcia said, "and that's how this was tied to me."

Garcia is not alone.  According to a new government study, one out of every 14 Americans age 16 and over have been the target of identity thieves.  The report was issued by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and found that the crime affected 16.6 million people in 2012.

Kim Gough is with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse and says anyone can be a victim.

"I think you have to be on the alert constantly," Gough said. "You as a person can only protect yourself." 

But if there is a security breach by a company you do business with, no amount of personal protection will keep your personal information safe.

Garcia has been trying to clear up his credit for three week.  One credit reporting agency has removed the fraudulent bill, but the other two still show a default on his report.

"It is a long tedious process, which is unfortunate because it's not my fault to begin with," Garcia said.

According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, here are the Top 5 behaviors that can lead to identity theft.

1) Carrying your social security card in your wallet

2) Using a machine that has been compromised with a skimming device

3) Using public WiFi while making financial transactions

4) Responding to a phishing email with personal information

5) Not shredding documents

Fire crews rushed to a HomeGoods retail store in Poway Friday morning after a fire broke out at the business.

The blaze began around 6:45 a.m. at a HomeGoods located at 13644 Poway Rd.

According to officials from the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, the fire began inside a trash compactor and somehow spread to the loading area of the store.

Within the hour, the fire was fully knocked down. Poway fire officials said the blaze was mostly contained to the trash compactor behind the store. Cardboard inside that compactor somehow ignited.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. No injuries were reported.

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A man claiming to be armed with a handgun stole prescription drugs from a CVS pharmacy in San Diego’s City Heights area Friday morning, police confirmed.

The incident happened around 8:30 a.m. at the CVS located at 4404 El Cajon Blvd.

According to the San Diego Police Department, the suspect walked into the store and made his way to the pharmacy section in the back.

Claiming to be armed with some type of handgun, officials said the man then demanded several types of prescription drugs from a lone pharmacist behind the counter.

After receiving a bag full of prescription drugs, the man fled the store and was last seen heading westbound on El Cajon Blvd.

Responding officers immediately began canvassing the area for the man, but he was not immediately located.

NBC 7 spoke with the pharmacy employee involved in the incident, who wished to remain anonymous. She said the suspect, who threatened to be armed, told her she should give him whatever he wanted.

He then proceeded to give the employee very specific instructions as to what he wanted, which makes the employee think the man is a regular customer at the CVS store, or at the very least has been observing and is familiar with the pharmacy.

According to the employee, the suspect pointed to the third shelf from the bottom of a drug counter and demanded three bottles of cough syrup with codeine, specifically promethazine with codeine.

The employee said the robbery happened when the pharmacy first opened up for the day, and she was the only one working, though a manager was also in the store.

The woman described the suspect to police as a man in his mid-20s, about 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, wearing a baseball cap with a black hoodie over it and dark green sweatpants. He had tattoos on his hands.

She said that though the man claimed he had weapons, she never saw a gun, nor did he brandish one.

Just a few doors down from the CVS is Hoover High School. Officials confirm the school did not go into lockdown following the robbery, but students outside the school were asked to go inside the building as police canvassed the area for the suspect.

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It's a holiday tradition for the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System.

And this year, MTS chose first graders at Encanto Elementary School to get what every little boy and girl wants from Santa -- a brand new bicycle.

MTS partnered with San Diego Police Department and Navy Crew from the Fleet Weather Center to teach some lucky, local first-grade students about bus, rail and bicycle safety.

MTS chief executive officer Paul Jablonski says his staff raises money all year, looking forward to this special holiday event.

"It's a wonderful thing that we keep the Christmas spirit alive all year at MTS, raising money to do this and then coming here every year and doing this, seeing the look on those kids faces makes it all worth while," he said.

Each year MTS brings the holiday gift -- complete with matching helmet -- to a different first grade class across San Diego County.

On Friday, when the kids received their new wheels, they screamed with excitement. After strapping on their new helmets, the kids were allowed to take their bikes for a spin with the help from MTS officials.

We now know the official cause of death of the British patient found dead in a stairwell at San Francisco General Hospital 17 days after she disappeared from her hospital room.

The city’s chief medical examiner says 57-year-old Lynne Spalding died from probable electrolyte imbalance, which is essentially dehydration, and delirium, which is known as clinical sepsis.

DOWNLOAD: Lynne Spalding’s Medical Examiner’s Report

The report says Spalding was originally in the hospital due to complications of ethanolism, which is another term for chronic alcoholism. A chemical imbalance due to alcoholism led to her death, the coroner has determined.

Haig Harris, an attorney representing Spalding's family, said he is angry and upset over finding about the examiner's report through the media. He said the report has no credibility and called it incomplete.

"How can they say they conducted an examination of a body they haven't found yet? This is bizzare," Harris said, referring to an autopsy reported on Oct. 6 when Spalding's body was found two days later on Oct. 8.

Harris, who also is calling for a grand jury investigation, said alcoholism has nothing to do with why Spalding died.

"She was out there in the elements and she died of either starvation or dehydration," he said. "This report would seem to say dehydration. They don't have to put secondary to a history of alcoholism."

David Perry, a family spokesman who knew Spalding for six years, said he had been pressing for the medical examiner report's release for weeks. He also denied that Spalding ever had an alcohol problem.

"Lynne was certainly not an alcoholic nor was she in any program that I was aware of,'' he said.

Spalding was admitted to the hospital for treatment of a bladder infection on Sept. 19. She disappeared two days later. On Oct. 8, her body was found in a locked, rarely used hospital stairwell.

The medical examiner's report does not specify when Spalding died but noted she was "deceased for some days before being found" in the stairwell. Her death is considered accidental.

According to the report, Spalding's dead body was clad in street clothes when it was discovered -- including a black-and-white jacket, a black top, black pants, and a pair of black boots. There were no signs of injury.

An exact time of death was not determined.

Perry said he was disappointed that no time of death was released.

"The only issue is did she die on Sept. 21 or sometime later,'' he said. "If the answer is she died after Sept. 21, then her family and friends feel that Lynne Spalding was killed through the neglect and malfeasance of San Francisco General Hospital and the San Francisco Sheriff's Department.''

In a statement released Friday, hospital spokesman Tristan Cook said a number of new measures had been put into place after Spalding's death, including daily stairwell checks and new training for security staff.

"Everyone here at San Francisco General is shocked and saddened by Ms. Spalding's loss,'' Cook said. "We have been doing everything we can to learn the facts and to ensure that it never happens again.''

Just how Spalding ended up in the stairwell has never been fully explained. Last month, the San Francisco Sheriff's Department announced staffing changes following Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi's admission of mistakes made by the department in the handling of Spalding’s disappearance.

An attorney for Spalding’s family claimed that sheriff’s deputies “did not conduct a thorough search” despite requests to search the medical center for the missing patient.

MORE: Lost Witness Surfaces in SF General Death Probe

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A bank robbery was reported at the California Coast Credit Union in Hillcrest just before 6 p.m. on Friday.

A suspect was reported fleeing the bank, at 1060 University Ave., and heading westbound. The suspect is described as 20-something, 5-foot-8 and 140 pounds, wearing white latex gloves and a dark sweater and bandana, according to police.

To quote her husband's favorite singer, Patti Blagojevich suggests it’s going to be a blue Christmas.

The former First Lady of Illinois took a seat in the front row of the imprisoned ex-governor’s appeal hearing Friday, telling reporters that "there isn’t a day that goes by that my daughters and I don’t feel the emptiness of the absence of my husband."

"We’ve just gone through our second Thanksgiving, our second Christmas without him," she said.  "And we just hope and pray that he can be home soon with his family."

Toward that end, Blagojevich’s lawyers argued before the court that he had been deprived of the right to present a defense and that his conviction should be overturned.

"He was literally left on the stand with no defense," declared attorney Leonard Goodman. "The government doesn't even dispute that this was unfair!"

While the government did dispute that, the three judges on the appellate panel took turns asking pointed questions of both sides.

"Is there any earlier case in which there was a criminal prosecution based on a promise to swap one political job for another?" Judge Frank Easterbrook asked. He was joined by judge Ilana Diamond Rovner, who noted that "politics is about winning friends, influencing people and using appointment power."

"Where is the line that differentiates legal horse trading from a federal offense that puts you in prison?" Rovner asked.

Easterbrook pointedly cited the example of Earl Warren, former governor of California, who famously traded political support for a guarantee from Dwight Eisenhower that he would be appointed to the United States Supreme Court.

"If I understand your position," he told prosecutor Debra Riggs Bonamici, "Earl Warren should have gone to prison, and Dwight Eisenhower should have gone to prison!"

When Bonamici attempted to suggest that the Blagojevich scenario was different, Easterbrook interrupted.

"This proposed trade was a trade for the presidency of the United States for a position on the Supreme Court," he said. "The line between that and this can’t be the distinction between historical honor, and felon status!"

That said, judges on the Appellate Court are notorious for playing devil’s advocate, and their questions often do not telegraph their final rulings.

Indeed, they were equally contentious with the defense.

Rovner noted an undercover tape, where Blagojevich lamented the fact that then President-elect Obama was only willing to offer "appreciation" for the appointment of his friend Valerie Jarrett to the U.S. Senate.

"Doesn’t that tend to show that he was acting for private gain, rather than any public interest?" she asked.

Attorney Goodman insisted Blagojevich attempted nothing in secret, and had open discussions even outside his circle of advisors about a hope of being appointed to the Obama cabinet.

"This was not some backroom deal, that, when the smoke clears, he thought he was going to be Health and Human Services Secretary!" Goodman declared. 

The judges took the Blagojevich appeal under advisement. Afterwards, Goodman expressed hope that his arguments had hit home.

"His trial was fundamentally unfair," he said. "The jury did not get both sides of the story.  He was prevented, barred, from presenting his defense, and we’re praying that were successful in those arguments."

A woman who fell through a neighbor's patio roof in Encanto had to be rescued by the San Diego Fire Department on Friday night.

Police say she climbed up pallets leaned against the home, at 1916 Weaver St., made her way to the roof of a porch and then seconds later fell through. On the way down she got caught on a nail and had to be rescued.

Police believe she was intoxicated.

A couple living inside the home told authorities they heard a large bang and ran outside to find the woman hanging from part of the roof.

Authorities continued to investigate Saturday after a man who led police on a high-speed pursuit through Los Angeles for more than an hour Friday night died after crashing into another car and being shot by officers.

The chase began before 9:30 p.m. as sheriff's deputies pursued the silver Corvette for reckless driving, officials said.

"There was great concern that he was going to hurt someone severely," LAPD Lt. Andy Neiman said.

MORE: Infamous SoCal Police Chases

Deputies abandoned the chase and left a helicopter over the car as it sped through surface streets near Huntington Park in Cudahy. Minutes later, CHP officers began pursuing the driver as it drove with it lights off through neighborhoods.

The LAPD then picked up the pursuit, adding to the multitude of squad cars chasing the Corvette, which eventually turned its headlights back on as it sped through South Los Angeles.

By 10:30 p.m., the pursuit moved into downtown Los Angeles when the Corvette slammed into another car as it drove westbound through the intersection of South Los Angeles Street and East Olympic Boulevard.

"It did look like a very violent collision, very traumatic," Neiman said.

The second car sheared a fire hydrant after it was slammed into by the Corvette. The drivers of that car ran out of the car and were later taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

The Corvette slid and stopped, and the driver stumbled out of the car.

"The suspect got out of the vehicle and at that point, something occurred that prompted the officer-involved shooting," Neiman said.

Medics could be seen appearing to try to revive the suspect by performing CPR. His body was then taken from the scene. Police have confirmed to NBC4 that the suspect has died.

Neiman said that the officers involved in the shooting still need to be interviewed, and at this time, it is still early in the investigation.

NBC4's Mike Tauber contributed to this report.

A Chicago animal shelter is under investigation after 1,200 cats were found unaccounted for and complaints alleged dozens others were being kept in inhumane conditions.

The investigation of North Riverside-based Purrs From the Heart was sparked in September by a written complaint to the city that prompted Animal Care and Control to ban the shelter from taking additional cats out of the pound, according to a report from the Chicago Tribune.

The shelter adopts cats from Chicago Animal Care and Control and places them in foster homes around the city to avoid euthanization.

A report shows as many as 150 cats were left at a South Side apartment at a given time, and the tenants were paid $150 each week to care for the animals until the foster agreement soured.

Purrs From the Heart founders told the Tribune several animals fostered at the location were adopted or sick when they arrived. They acknowledged they found out some cats in the apartment were killed or starved but said the blame falls on the tenants they paid to care for the fostered animals.

Officials said no cats were ultimately found at that location and one other location the shelter claimed to have sent a large number of cats. Neither location was authorized to provide shelter for the animals, the Tribune reported.

In total officials speculate that as many as 1,200 cats could be missing from multiple locations. 

Founder Brian Przybylski told the Tribune he blames the city because Chicago officials knew the shelter was foster-based. Przybylski alleges they allowed too many people to rescue cats under his organization’s name, the Tribune reported.

The owners reportedly plan to close the shelter by the end of the year, citing their own health and family problems, and intend to transfer remaining cats they have in their care to other city shelters.

If investigators believe a criminal offense took place, the case could be referred to the state’s attorney’s office and the shelter could face administrative penalties from the Agriculture Department for violating the state’s Animal Welfare Act.

A Southern California woman mourning the death of her husband finally mustered up the strength to cancel his cell phone plan, only to find the phone company would give her the runaround.

Judy Silk’s husband, Daniel Cogan, died in November from colon cancer. As she began to put his finances in order, she realized she needed to cancel his T-Mobile plan.

“They asked me if I had a PIN number and I said no,” Silk told NBC4. “And they said, ‘What’s the last number he called in the last seven days?’ And I said, ‘Well, he passed away a month ago.’”

T-Mobile’s customer service suggested she go to a store, but the store employees couldn’t help her either, she said.

Silk even offered to send the company a copy of her husband’s death certificate, but she said the manager on the other end of the phone said they could only cancel with a PIN number.

“They said to me, why did I wait a month to call them, that it would've been easier if I would've called sooner,” Silk said. “I said I had a few things going on than to call T-Mobile."

The same day NBC4 contacted T-Mobile regarding Silk’s situation, T-Mobile canceled her husband’s account.

Silk got the call from T-Mobile while she was being interviewed by NBC4.

“Hello?” she answered. “Great. And the phone is canceled, thank you.”

The phone company representative told SIlk they noticed they charged her for the prepaid account two times, once in November and once in December. Silk was offered a refund and was appreciative, but she had some words left to say.

“"It was really painful for me to have to make the call and painful for me to have to go through arguing with your supervisors and managers and be told that it was too hard for them to do because I waited a month,” she said on the call. “It's just not right.”

Good Samaritans rallied to help a Staten Island family whose Sandy-ravaged home was again destroyed by vandals just days before the family was set to move back in.

Nancy Fisher and Ruben Vazquez's Midland Beach home of over 35 years was destroyed in the October 2012 storm, and the couple and their children had been staying with friends for the past 14 months. During that time, Vazquez would work his day job then return to his Staten Island house each night to make repairs and rebuild. 

The family was finally days away from moving back in when vandals broke in on Thursday. They had ransacked the living room, shattering glass, smashing holes in the new drywall and busting up the new refrigerator. They left beer cans, urinated on the floor and even destroyed the lone ornament on the family's Charlie Brown Christmas tree. 

"I saw everything was devastated and I just broke down,"  Fisher said.  

When NBC 4 New York viewers saw the family's story Thursday night, they were inspired to wake up early Friday and help. 

"My neighbor called me and he said some guy was here," said a stunned Fisher. "He drove like 100 miles to come down and see me and give me gifts." 

Another woman brought the family a new Charlie Brown Christmas tree, which has come to symbolize their new beginning post- Sandy.

"Someone bring back my new beginning and it's going to be better than ever," said Fisher. "I believe that. I believe in people and I believe good things are going to happen." 

Ross Decker of Yellow Boots, a non-profit group in Staten island, committed to bring in an army of volunteers Saturday to help the family not only get back on track but to move in ahead of schedule. 

"We just kind of sprung into action, made some phone calls," he said. "We're shocked to see that anyone would do something so horrible and vile as this." 

"Ruben did a great job putting together patches for a lot of the holes, but there's still a bit of work that needs to be done, and that poor guy needs a break. He's been up all night repairing his house," he added. 

For Fisher, the heartbreaking destruction by a few has been outshadowed by the hugs, smiles, laughter and kindness of so many.

"Some people are rotten out there, but there are so many good people out there, they beat out the rotten people," she said. "We'll come back stronger, like we did with Sandy." 

An Enfield, Conn., woman is under arrest, charged with a horrific case of animal abuse. Police said Carla Bushnell was supposed to be pet-sitting when she starved a dog to death.

“That dog was not my pet…he was my son,” said Andrew Zander, the dog's owner.

When Zander got a call from Enfield Police a few weeks ago about the death of his dog, Bandit, he couldn’t believe it.

“I immediately broke down,” Zander said.

Investigators said Carla Bushnell was responsible, according to police.

Zander said Bushnell was a family friend and he asked her to continuously check on Bandit at his apartment. He was away for a few months to help his wife at a Massachusetts hospital.

“There was no reason for my wife or I to have any doubts she would be a good caretaker. She insisted she wanted to take care of them,” Zander explained.

According to police, a postal worker saw mail piling up outside Zander's place in November and became suspicious. The carrier then looked in the window and saw the dog dead on the floor.

Exam results showed there was absolutely no food in Bandit’s system.

Carla Bushnell was arrested Thursday night and charged with animal cruelty. Investigators said she was liable because she made an agreement to watch the dog and Zander left instructions for Bushnell with her name on them on his kitchen cabinet.

“The dog had been starved for at least a month. Carla said in her statement that she was there every day,” Zander said.

NBC Connecticut tried talking to Bushnell after she bonded out of jail on Friday, but she would not answer any questions.

Zander hoped for an explanation.

“I would have rather seen him pass by old age or hit by a car than to starve to death,” he said.

He wants Bushnell held accountable for the suffering his dog went through.

A bomb scare at the Chula Vista Courthouse Friday morning was declared a false alarm, officials from the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department confirmed.

Chula Vista Police Department officials were called to the courthouse located at 500 3rd Avenue at around 8:45 a.m. to investigate what looked like a suspicious device left near the building. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Bomb Squad was called in to assist shortly thereafter.

Sheriff’s deputies discovered the suspicious backpack on the premises and evacuated a portion of the building while the bomb squad investigated.

Just after 10 a.m., Superior Court public information officer Karen Dalton confirmed that some people who were in the building prior to the discovery of the suspicious package were allowed to stay inside, per instructions from officials. However, Dalton said no other people were allowed to enter the building until the investigation had wrapped.

Bomb technicians used robots to evaluate the suspicious backpack, which officials said had an antenna from a radio protruding from the top.

Ultimately, it was determined that the backpack did not pose a threat.

By 11 a.m., officials said normal operations at the courthouse had resumed. No one was injured in the incident.

An online memorial fund has been established for a mother and child killed in a fatal collision on Interstate 5 in San Diego County.

Jillian Sedivec, 28, and her daughter, 4-year-old Savanah Wilson, died when the SUV they were traveling in drove into a big rig on northbound I-5 Tuesday morning.

The California Highway Patrol released the names of the victims Wednesday and confirmed that it appears the driver of the SUV did not apply the brakes in the collision.

The grocery store truck was stopped in a line of other trucks at the San Onofre Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Facility near the I-5 checkpoint and scales around 9:20 a.m.

Several witnesses also told CHP investigators that the SUV did not swerve to avoid the collision.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but officials do not suspect alcohol as a factor.

CHP investigators believe it could take several months to complete their investigation into what happened in the moments leading up to the deadly crash.

Officials said the driver of the big rig was not injured in the collision.

The memorial fund for the mother and daughter was set up Thursday and, in just 19 hours, had collected more than $4,300 in donations for the family. The page also revealed Sedivec leaves behind another daughter, an 8-year-old named Cydney.

The following message about Sedivec and her daughter was also posted to the fundraiser account:

“One December 10th, 2013 Jillian a single mother and her 4-year-old daughter Savanah were involved in a horrible and fatal traffic accident north of Oceanside, California. The fund is for Jillian’s surviving 8-year-old daughter Cydney and to help with the funeral and memorial expenses. The entire family appreciates everyone’s thoughts and prayers as they endure this difficult time.”

Ed. Note: CHP officials initially provided an incorrect spelling of the mother's last name. The spelling has been corrected. We regret the error.